234 THE VAMPIRE. 



rising perpendicularly from the end of its nose ; nor have I ever been 

 able to learn that bats in India suck animals, though I have ques- 

 tioned many people on this subject. I could only find two species 

 of bats in Guiana with a membrane rising from the nose. Both 

 these kinds suck animals and eat fruit ; while those bats without a 

 membrane on the nose seem to live entirely upon fruit and insects, 

 but chiefly insects. A gentleman, 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 jackass. 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. I 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. 



For the space of eleven months, I slept alone in the loft of a 

 woodcutter's abandoned house in the forest ; and as there was free 

 entrance and exit to the vampire, I had many a fine opportunity of 

 paying attention to this nocturnal surgeon. He does not always live 

 on blood. When the moon shone bright, and the fruit of the banana 

 tree was ripe, I could see him approach and eat it. He would also 

 bring into the loft from the forest a green round fruit, something 

 like the wild guava, and about the size of a nutmeg. There was 

 something also in the blossom of the lawarri-nut-tree, which was very 

 grateful to him ; for on coming up Waratilla Creek, in a moonlight 

 night, I saw several vampires fluttering round the top of the lawarri- 

 tree, and every now and then the blossoms which they had broken 

 off fell into the water. They certainly did not drop off naturally, for 

 on examining several of them, they appeared quite fresh and bloom- 

 ing. So I concluded the vampires pulled them from the tree, either 

 to get at the incipient fruit, or to catch the insects which often take 

 up their abode in flowers. 



The vampire, in general, measures about twenty-six inches from 



