Of the animal called guabiniquinax [1]

Translated by Kristine (Kasey) Drake ’23

There is an animal called guabiniquinax, which is a bit bigger than a rabbit, and its feet
are the same shape, and its tail is like that of a mouse and long and the hair straight like that of a
badger; when they are skinned, their meat is white and good to eat. These animals are found in
the mangroves along the coast, where they sleep high on the trees; the Indians hunt them by
placing a canoe under the mangrove tree and shaking it, making them fall into the water, and
then jumping out of the canoe and take them. These animals look somewhat like foxes, and they
are about the size of a hare. Their color is brown mixed with red; the tail is hairy, and the head is
like that of a ferret. There are many of them on the coast of Fernandina island, also called Cuba.

[1] Possibly the Demarest’s hutia (Capromys pilorides) or Cuban hutia, the largest of the extant hutias, common in mangrove habitats throughout Cuba, where it is endemic; or Cabrera’s hutia (Mesocapromys angelcabrera), another endemic species whose natural habitats are subtropical or tropical mangrove forests and swamps. Editor’s note.