132 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. 



by the great bats which now and again emerged from the 

 dark recesses of the cavern. 



Nor is it only in this way that bats were for me, in 

 those earlier days of trustful acceptance of all things 

 printed, objects of not wholly unpleasant horror. I had 

 somehow and somewhere come across Captain Sted man's 

 account of the huge and terrible vampire of South 

 America. It was with a strange thrill that I more lately 

 renewed my acquaintance with the story in the pleasant 

 pages of the Rev. Dr. Bingley's Animal Biography- 

 Thus it runs : " I cannot here forbear relating," says the 

 Captain, " a singular circumstance. On waking about four 

 o'clock one morning in my hammock, I was extremely 

 alarmed at finding myself weltering " (how I dwelt breath- 

 lessly on that word weltering !) " in congealed blood, and 

 without feeling " (mark how the mystery deepens !) " any 

 pain whatever. I started up, and rung for the surgeon, 

 with a fire-brand in one hand, and all over besmeared with 

 gore ; to which, if added, my face pale, short hair, and 

 tattered apparel, he might well ask the question : 



<c ' Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, 

 Bring with thee airs of heav'n, or blasts from hell ? ' 



The mystery, however, was that I had been bitten by the 

 Vampire, or Spectre of Guiana. This is no other than a 

 bat of monstrous size, that sucks the blood from men and 

 cattle when they are fast asleep, even sometimes till they 

 die" (oh, cruel death!), "and as the manner in which 

 they proceed is truly wonderful, I shall endeavour to give 

 a distinct account of it. Knowing, by instinct, that the 

 person they intend to attack is in a sound slumber, they 

 generally alight near the feet, where, while the creature 

 continues fanning with its enormous wings " (oh, diabolical 

 instinct !) a he bites a piece out of the tip of the great 



