ATTACKS OK VAMI'IRKS. I3I 



skin. The blood, therefore, with which they gorge themselves comes, 

 not from the veins or arteries, but from the capillary vessels of the skin. 

 They sometimes attack sleeping poultry, and bite them on the crest or 

 the other appendages which decorate their heads. Most frequently 

 gangrene of the wound supervenes in these subjects, and death follows. 



Azara fully couhrnis their sanguinary proclivities with regard to man, 

 having himself on several occasions experienced their effects. At four 

 different times this naturalist had his toes bitten when he was obliged to 

 sleep in the open air. But the sensation was so painless that he did not 

 awake, and knew nothing of his mishap until morning. He suffered from 

 the effects of these wounds for some days, although he did not think it 

 necessary to pay any attention to them. 



The same traveler adds that they do not live on blood except when 

 insects are scarce. He also gives an opinion, but without mentioning 

 it as his own, or expressing his belief in it, hut which is credited by the 

 natives, that in order to lessen the sensation of pain in their victims, these 

 animals fan with their wings the part they are about to wound. 



Humboldt writes : " During the cool long night the cattle and horses 

 cannot rest; for monstrous bats suck their blood while they sleep, or 

 fasten themselves to their backs, causing suppurating woimds in which 

 flics and insects settle. The bats which bit our dogs had long tails like 

 the Molossi, but I believe they were the leaf-nosed varieties which 

 possess a tongue that is a real sucking machine. The wounds were small 

 and round; the dog howled from fear rather than pain. Still I have slept 

 many a night under the open sky without being bitten. The bite is not 

 dangerous, and the pain so slight that the bat is off and away before the 

 sleeper awakes." Rengger states " that the wounds are a quarter of an 

 inch in diameter and about two lines deep, never reaching the muscles, 

 and showing no traces of teeth. The loss of blood is about three ounces 

 from each wound." Burmcister, however, says that the loss of blood is 

 very slight, and that he never knew of any man being attacked, or any 

 animal dying of the wound. Hensel tells us that in Rio de Janeiro the 

 stables require to be furnished with lamps and punkas to keep the bats 

 from the horses. He does not attribute blood-sucking propensities to all 

 the leaf-nosed bats. ' Most of them have teeth like Carnivora, and pro- 

 duce wounds resembling those inflicted by beasts of prey ; but the wounds 

 caused by the blood-suckers are quite different; they seem to be produced 

 by raising up the skin and then severing it by a horizontal cut. Hence 



