THE LONG-TONGUED VAMPIRES 305 



of hollow trees, or beneath the leaves of palms. They have been accredited with 

 blood-sucking propensities, and although Dr. Dobson seems disinclined to accept 

 this view, yet the testimony of several observers inclines us to believe that the in- 

 dictment is true. We have already alluded to Mr. Bates' s account of his being 

 wounded during the night by a bat which he refers to the present genus ; and in 

 the same passage he observes that ' ' the fact of their sucking the blood of persons' 

 sleeping, from wounds which they make in the toes, is now well established ; but it 

 is only a few persons who are subject to this blood-letting. According to the 

 natives, the Phyllostoma is the only kind which attacks man." The latter part of 

 the statement makes this testimony the less convincing, since there is no doubt but 

 that the blood-sucking vampires mentioned below are the species which most 

 generally and habitually attack Mammals. That the bat caught by Mr. Bates was 

 a javelin-bat, or an allied form, is evident from his allusion to the large size of the 

 nose-leaf ; and thus the only way in which his statement could be disproved would 

 be by assuming that, while a true blood-sucking vampire was the real culprit, the 

 javelin-bat was the one caught and qharged with the attack. 



Mr. Wallace's testimony, as given in his Travels on the Amazon, is very similar 

 to that of Mr. Bates' s ; the javelin-bats being here also the ones charged with blood 

 sucking. In a later work ( Tropical Nature) , Mr. Wallace indeed speaks of the bats 

 charged with this crime as having their tongues armed at the tip with horny papillae 

 which would seem to point to the under-mentioned long-tongued vampires, whose 

 food is insects and fruit. He alludes, however, in both places to the blood-sucking 

 bats as javalin-bats ; and although there is evidently some confusion in regard to 

 the tongue question, it is difficult to believe that two independent observers should 

 have been so deceived as to charge members of one group of bats with an attack 

 committed by those of another. 



THE LONG-TONGUED VAMPIRES 

 Genus Glossophaga, etc. 



A group of several genera of rather small or medium-sized bats are at once 

 distinguished from the other members of 

 the present family by their long and nar- 

 row muzzles, and their slender, elongated 

 tongues, which can be protruded for a 

 considerable distance beyond the mouth. 

 At their extremities these tongues are 

 armed on the upper surface with a num- 

 ber of long, thread-like papillae ; and it 

 was long considered that these papillae HEAD OF LONG-TONGUED VAMPIRE. 



were employed for abrading the skin of (Chammycteris.) 



. (From Dobson.) 



animals previous to the process of blood 



sucking. It now appears, however, that their use is either to extract the soft pulp 



from the interior of hard-rinded fruits, or to lick out insects from the tubes of 



