Queries and Answers. ' 679 



man, by name Walcott, from Barbadoes, lived high up the River Demerara. 

 While I was passing a day or two at his house, the vampires sucked his 

 son, a boy of about ten or eleven years old, some of his fowls, and his jack- 

 ass. The youth showed me his forehead at daybreak : the wound was still 

 bleeding apace, and I examined it with minute attention. The poor ass 

 was doomed to be a prey to these sanguinary imps of night ; he looked like 

 misery steeped in vinegar. 1 saw, by the numerous sores on his body, and 

 by his apparent debility, that he would soon sink under his afflictions. Mr. 

 Walcott told me that it was with the greatest difficulty he could keep a few 

 fowls, on account of the smaller vampire ; and that the larger kind were 

 killing his poor ass by inches. It was the only quadruped he had brought 

 up with him into the forest. 



Although I was so long in Dutch Guiana, and visited the Orinoco and 

 Cayenne, and ranged through part of the interior of Portuguese Guiana, 

 still I could never find out how the vampires actually draw the blood ; and, 

 at this day, I am as ignorant of the real process as though I had never been 

 in the vampire's country. I should not feel so mortified at my total failure 

 in attempting the discovery, had I not made such diligent search after the 

 vampire, and examined its haunts. Europeans may consider as fabulous 

 the stories related of the vampire ; but, for my own part, I must believe in 

 its powers of sucking blood from living animals, as I have repeatedly seen 

 both men and beasts which had been sucked, and, moreover, I have ex- 

 amined very minutely their bleeding wounds. 



Wishful of having it in my power to say that I had been sucked by the 

 vampire, and not caring for the loss of ten or twelve ounces of blood, I 

 frequently and designedly put myself in the way of trial. But the vampire 

 seemed to take a personal dislike to me ; and the provoking brute would 

 refuse to give my claret one solitary trial, though he would tap the more 

 favoured Indian's toe, in a hammock within a few yards of mine. For the 

 space of eleven months, I slept alone in the loft of a woodcutter's aban- 

 doned house in the forest ; and though the vampire came in and out every 

 night, and I had the finest opportunity of seeing him, as the moon shone 

 through apertures where windows had once been, I never could be certain 

 that I saw him make a positive attempt to quench his thirst from my veins, 

 though he often hovered over the hammock. — Charles Waterton. Walton 

 Hall, June U. 1^32. 



The Wigeon^s Nest and Eggs found hy J. C. (p. 384.) — In addition to 

 the query by Mr. Waterton, p. 590., on this subject, I am desirous to learn 

 if J. C. recollects the colour and size of the eggs he found, and what their 

 size and colour were. — J. D. Salmon. Bourne, Lincolnshire, July 9. 1832. 



Lampreys, their Sex, Mode of Spawning, 8fc. (Vol. III. p. 478., Vol. V. 

 23. 290.) — Sir, When I had the pleasure of writing to you before (Vol.V. 

 p. 290.), I had either overlooked or forgotten the queries of " An Old 

 Angler," respecting the lamprey (Vol. III. p. 478.), or I should have re- 

 plied to them at that time. However, your remarks in the April Number 

 (p. 290.) have induced me to pay a little more attention to the subject. I 

 can now confirm, in the strongest and most satisfactory manner, the sup- 

 position of An Old Angler, that the sexes are as distinct in the lamprey as 

 they are in the cod or the herring. How so distinguished an anatomist as 

 Sir E. Home fell into such a mistake it is not for me to say : but I am as 

 certain that the sexes are distinct in the lamprey, as that they are so in any 

 other animal ; and I will now give my reason for making this positive 

 assertion. On the 8th of May, happening to cross a small stream, I saw a 

 number of lampreys in the act of spawning ; and, remembering the queries 

 of your correspondent, I stood to watch their motions. After observing 

 them for some time, I observed one twist its tail round another in such a 

 manner, and they both stirred up the sand and small gravel from the bot- 



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