x. FLITTERMICE. . 147 



The true blood-sucker is a smaller bat, about four inches 

 long and about fifteen inches in expanse of wing. Its 

 teeth are curiously modified in relation to its mode of life. 

 In the adult animal there are in the upper jaw two large 

 prominent triangular incisor teeth, wonderfully sharp and 

 trenchant. On either side of these the canines are also 

 sharp and of a somewhat similar form. Behind these 

 again are two sharp-edged premolars. Molar teeth there 

 are none. It is with the sharp incisors that the bat makes 

 its minute puncture of a wound. Some years ago when I 

 was in Brazil I was shown, at Juiz da Fora, one of these 

 Desmodonts which had been caught in the act of sucking 

 the blood from the shoulder of a mule. The wound is, 

 however, not generally a very serious one. 



Once more let me return for just one moment to our 

 harmless little English flittermice. The inebriate Flying 

 Fox of the East and the wicked blood-sucking Desmodus of 

 the West are but distant relations of our fitfully flitting 

 friend of the long summer evenings. We must not hold 

 our little insect-eating Leather-wings guilty of the unpar- 

 donable excesses of the one or the blood-thirsty savagery 

 of the other. To insects they may appear, and not unjustly, 

 cruel ogres ; but let us rather regard them as part of the 

 glad symbolism which accompanies Nature's beautiful 

 awakening from the long sleep of winter. 



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