FROM MOLETOWN TO BATVILLE 397 



eating Bat has ears and eyes of moderate size, wliile the 

 insect-eaters have very hirge ears, small eyes, and wide 

 mouths fringed with hair, tliat make a sort of fly-trap 

 akin to the Whip-poor-will's beak. The Fruit-eating 

 Bats liave a raised-up ring on the tongue, wliich gives 

 tliem great sucking power. They are thus able to suck 

 the juice from large fruits that they cannot pick and eat. 

 Sometimes when very hungry they have been known 

 to suck the blood from the small surface veins, or 

 capillaries^ of cattle, or even people, but they never eat 

 people or do any of the savage things tliat story books are 

 so fond of relating. The real Vampire Bat of tropical 

 America, Desmodon rnfus, as the Wise Men call him, is a 

 little fellow no larger than our Little Red Bat and has no 

 middle front teeth or molars, but instead has two sharp 

 dog-teeth that he uses to prick the flesh so that he may 

 suck blood. He will sometimes fasten upon the toes 

 of sleeping people, and the negroes are very much 

 afraid of him. Our familiar Bats are small and of the 

 insect-eating species. Four belong in the family of 

 Twilight Bats, called Vesper-til-ion-ida\ and one to the 

 family of House Bats. 



" Numerous as Bats are, very little is seen of them, 

 for they are lovers of darkness, not coming out to hunt 

 their insect food until after the last Vesper Sparrow has 

 gone to sleep, and the Whip-poor-will has begun to com- 

 plain. They are obliged to take a very long winter 

 nap. You liave seen that the insect eating birds leave 

 ns earlier in autumn than the seed-eaters ; so for the 

 same reason Bats, who do not migrate, go to sleep when 

 the fi-ost clears the insects from their airy hunting 

 grounds. Then they flit away to some dark old build- 



