THE VAMPIRE. 



493 



almost every night, and though there were frequently half a 

 dozen other persons in the room, would be the favoured party. 

 An Indian girl at Manaquery, on the Upper Amazon, who was 

 likewise frequently annoyed by the bats, was at length so much 

 weakened by loss of blood, that fears were entertained of her 

 life if they continued their attacks, and it was found necessary 

 to send her to a distance, where her bloodthirsty persecutors did 

 not abound. 



In the province of Minas Greraes innumerable troops of large 

 bats issue from the limestone caverns on the banks of the Eio 

 Francisco, or from the crevices of the granite walls of the 

 Parime Mountains, and not seldom attack the cattle with such 

 bloodthirsty obstinacy as to oblige the planters to drive their 

 herds to some other part of the country. To keep them in 

 check, tobacco and sulphur are from time to time ignited under 

 the rocks where they abound, when the stunned bats drop down, 

 and are killed by thousands. 



The vampires may sometimes be seen in the forest, hanging 

 in clusters, head downwards, from the branch of a tree, a cir- 

 cumstance of which Goldsmith seems to have been aware, for 

 in the ' Deserted Village,' speaking of America, he says — 



' And matted woods, where birds forget to sing, 

 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling.' 



Some of the pTiyllostomidae have a tongue once as long again 

 as the head, and armed at the extremity with recurved bristles, 

 like that of the woodpecker, no doubt a very serviceable instru- 

 ment for extracting in- 

 sects from the narrow 

 hollows and crevices 

 of trees and rocks. 



The Rhinolophi, or 

 Horse-shoe Bats, of the 

 old continent, have 

 also a more or less 

 complicated nasal ap- 

 pendage, or foliaceous 

 membrane at the end 

 of the nose but differ- 

 ing in its conformation from that of the phyllostomidae. 



- '^^ ■^^^BP**' 



RimJOLOFHUS. 



