TROPICAL NATURE 



across the expanded wings, with the body of a proportionate 

 size ; and when resting in the daytime on dead trees, hanging 

 head downwards, the branches look as if covered with some 

 monster fruits. The descendants of the Portuguese in the East 

 use them for food, but all the native inhabitants reject them. 



In South America there is a group of bats which are sure 

 to attract attention. These are the so-called vampires or 

 blood-suckers, which abound in most parts of tropical Amer- 

 ica, and are especially plentiful in the Amazon valley. Their 

 carnivorous propensities were once discredited, but are too 

 well authenticated. Horses and cattle are often bitten, and 

 are found in the morning covered with blood, and repeated 

 attacks weaken and ultimately destroy them. Some persons 

 are especially subject to the attacks of these bats; and as 

 native huts are never sufficiently close to keep them out, 

 these unfortunate individuals are obliged to sleep completely 

 muffled up in order to avoid being made seriously ill or even 

 losing their lives. The exact manner in which the attack is 

 made is not positively known, as the sufferer never feels the 

 wound. The present writer was once bitten on the toe, 

 which was found bleeding in the morning from a small round 

 hole from which the flow of blood was not easily stopped. 

 On another occasion, when his feet were carefully covered 

 up, he was bitten on the tip of the nose, only awaking to find 

 his face streaming with blood. The motion of the wings fans 

 the sleeper into a deeper slumber, and renders him insensible 

 to the gentle abrasion of the skin either by teeth or tongue. 

 This ultimately forms a minute hole, the blood flowing from 

 which is sucked or lapped up by the hovering vampire. The 

 largest South American bats, having wings from two to two and 

 a half feet in expanse, are fruit-eaters like the Pteropi of the 

 East, the true blood-suckers being small or of medium size, 

 and varying in colour in different localities. They belong to 

 the genus Desmodus, and have a tongue with horny papillae 

 at the end ; and it is probably by means of this that they 

 abrade the skin and produce a small round wound. This is 

 the account given by Buffon and Azara, and there seems now 

 little doubt that it is correct. 



Beyond these two great types the monkeys and the bats 

 we look in vain among the varied forms of mammalian life 



