122 CHEIROPTERA. 



The dark dwellings of the bats, the strange, mouse-like body, the 

 leathern wing, the melancholy squeak, the repulsive look, give to them 

 a mysterious character. While good spirits appear with the wings of a 

 dove, evil demons are, in popular superstition, provided with the wings 

 of the bat ; and fabulous creatures like dragons or griffons are supposed 

 to bear themselves through the air on bat-like wings. Such views, 

 instilled in childhood on uneducated people, have produced a hatred 

 against a set of creatures which have claims for our protection, and 

 which certainly do more good than harm, by continuing in the twilight 

 the work of the swallow and keeping down the crowd of insect pests. 



The wild superstitions connected with the name of Vampire deserve 

 a longer notice. An eloquent writer has remarked : " Of all the crea- 

 tions of superstition a Vampire is perhaps the most horrible. You are 

 lying in your bed at night, thinking of nothing but sleep, when you see 

 by the faint light that is in your chamber, a shape entering at the door 

 and gliding toward 3'ou. The thing moves along the air as if by the 

 mere act of volition; it has a human visage and figure. The eyes stare 

 wildly from the head ; the hair is bristling; the flesh is livid ; the mouth 

 js bloody. 



" When you awake in the morning you think it is all a dream, until 

 you perceive a small, blue, deadly-looking spot on your chest near the 

 heart. You say nothing of the matter, but you know you are a doomed 

 man. Every night the shape returns, and, with a face horrified at itself, 

 sucks your life-blood in your sleep. You pine and droop and languish 

 till you die. When dead you yourself become a Vampire and create 

 fresh victims, who, d3-ing in turn, add to the phantom stock." 



This belief that the dead body is sometimes animated by a demon 

 who caused it to rise from the grave and behave like a musquito, is very 

 prevalent in the Southeast of Europe. Greece seems to have been its 

 cradle, but it is still widelj' spread and firmly held in the countries 

 bordering on Greece. 



From about the year 1727 to 1735 there was an epidemic of Vam- 

 pirism in Servia and Hungary. People died by hundreds under the 

 belief that they were killed by phantoms. Commissions were appointed 

 to investigate the matter, and the graves of alleged Vampires opened ; 

 the bodies were found undecomposed, with fresh skin and nails growing, 

 with florid complexions, and blood in the chest. Voltaire tells us that 

 " Vampires can be brought to reason only by being burnt when the)' 



