VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY. 489 



as well as small mammals, birds, amphibians, and even fishes, 

 as in the case of some Megadermidce, while others are spe- 

 cialized blood-suckers, or vampires. The fame of the blood- 

 sucking vampire-bats of South America has been greater than 

 has the knowledge of what they really are been exact. The 

 older naturalists, in fact, were misled, and attributed the 

 sanguinivorous habits to innocent insect- or fruit-eating spe- 

 cies; and the significant name of Vampirus was conferred on 

 forms that no more sucked blood than their kindred. The 

 attribute, however, does really pertain to a couple of spe- 

 cies of tropical America the Desmodus ritfus and Dlphyl- 

 la ecaudata. " It fell to the lot of Mr. Charles Darwin to de- 

 termine one of the species, at least; and the following is 

 his account of the circumstances under which the discovery 

 of the sanguinivorous habits of this species was made: 'The 

 vampire-bat is often the cause of much trouble, by biting the 

 horses on their withers. The injury is generally not so much 

 owinjj: to the loss of blood, as to the inflammation which the 

 pressure of the saddle afterwards produces. The whole cir- 

 cumstance has lately been doubted in England. I was there- 

 fore fortunate in being present when one (Desmodus d'orbi- 

 gnyi Nat.) was actually caught on a horse's back. We were 

 bivouacking late one evening near Coquimbo, in Chili, when 

 my servant, noticing that one of the horses was very restive, 

 went to see what was the matter, and, fancying he could de- 

 tect something, very suddenly put his hand on the beast's 

 withers, and secured the vampire'" ("Naturalist's Voyage 

 Round the World," 1838, p. 22). The species are adapted for 

 this blood-regimen by much enlarged convergent and acute- 

 ly pointed upper incisor teeth for piercing the skin, and a 

 stomach peculiar by the great caecal elongation of the cardi- 

 ac extremity for digestion of the blood. 



Of course, the North American species are included with 

 the others. The number is reduced from the 20 recognized 

 by Harrison Allen to 16, and the common European Vespe- 

 rugo serotinus is considered to be specifically identical with 

 the Scot02)hilus fuscus and Scotojihilu's carolinensis of Amer- 

 ican authors. For the benefit of those interested, and to 

 whom Dobson's work may not be available, the following 

 names adopted by that author are compared with the spe- 

 cies recognized by Harrison Allen : 



X2 



