438 



BATS. 



American vampire-bat. Fancy a creature measuring twenty- 

 eight inches in expanse of wing, its large leathery ears stand- 

 ing out from the sides and top of the head, and an erect spur- 

 shaped appendage on the tip of the nose, — the gTin, and the 

 glistening black eye, all combining to make up a figure which 

 reminds one of some mocking imp of fable. No wonder that 

 imaginative people have conferred diabolical instincts on so 

 ugly an animal. 



Ugly as is the broad leaf-nosed family of bats, it is in 

 reality the least harmless. The little gray Phyllostoma is the 

 guilty blood-sucker which visits sleepers and bleeds them in 



THE VAMPIRE-BAT. 



the night. It is of a dark gray colour, striped with white 

 down the back, and having a leaf-like fleshy expansion on the 

 tip of the nose. Although they undoubtedly attack sleeping 

 people, yet they appear to be somewhat partial as to the in- 

 dividuals they select. Bates, when sleeping in a room up the 

 Amazon, long unused, was awoke at midnight by a rushing 

 noise made by vast hosts of bats sweeping round him. The 

 air was alive with them. They had put out the lamp, and 

 when he relighted it the place appeared black with the 

 impish multitudes that were whirling round and round. After 

 he had laid about him well vi^ith a stick for a few miimtos 



