88 BATS 



attack any person who is in a sound slumber, biting a piece 

 out of the great toe no larger than a pinhead. The wound 

 is not sufficiently painful to awaken the sleeper, and through 

 the tiny orifice the bat will continue to suck blood until it is 

 scarcely able to fly. Domestic animals in some parts of 

 South America are specially liable to attack, and for that 

 reason the rearing of calves in particular is a difficult matter. 

 Horses are often bitten on the withers, and if an animal 

 does not suffer much from loss of blood, the pressure of a 

 saddle upon the wound will cause troublesome inflamma- 

 tion. It must be admitted that there are few reliable 

 accounts of a Bat having been caught while in the act 

 of bloodsucking. 



The Chiroptera render man good service in their constant 

 war upon the insect world, and a few species are utilised as 

 food ; but where Bats exist in very great numbers they 

 are sometimes a source of considerable wealth. Guano, the 

 decomposed or fossilised excrement of sea-birds, is found 

 largely on certain islands along the Pacific coast of South 

 America. Sometimes the beds are from fifty to sixty feet in 

 thickness, and as a fertiliser the material is of such com- 

 mercial value that Chili and Peru in 1881 went to war 

 concerning the possession of some of the guano islands. 



The guano of Bats has been found in large quantities in 

 caverns in France, Italy, and the Pyrenees ; but probably 

 the largest guano caves are those of San Antonio in Texas. 

 By means of a shaft entrance to the cave the guano can be 

 dug out without disturbing the sleeping bats, the number of 

 which in the largest cave is enormous. When evening comes 

 it is a wonderful sight to see them issue forth from the 

 mouth of the cave in a dark stream like a moving cloud 

 for quite two hours, with a noise of whirring wings which 

 sounds like a gale of wind. The sight is wonderfully 

 interesting, but the stench from the creatures is almost 

 unbearable. The supply of guano is naturally not 

 inexhaustible. When the guano has been taken from a 

 cave it is closed for a period of four years, by which time 

 there is another deposit well worth removal. 



