382 TROPICAL AMERICA AND ITS ANIMALS 



thick-lipped muzzles which enable them to catch the hard, round beetles on which 

 they feed. Although they fly well in every way, they are better adapted for walk- 

 ing on the ground than any other bats on account of their stout limbs and large 

 flat feet, which are free of the membrane. A well-known species is the red mastiff- 

 bat (Molossus rufus). 



The vampire bats, an exclusively New World group, range over the West 

 Indies, Central America, and South America as far as the 30th degree of south 

 latitude, but live apparently only in the forest regions. Their scientific name, 

 Phyllostomatidce, is derived from a leaf-like, skinny flap borne by most of them on 

 the nose, some of the species having warts, or skinny folds on the chin instead. 

 Such chin-flaps are found, for instance, in Blainville's chin-leafed vampire 

 (Mormops blainvillei), a bright orange -coloured species, so fragile in structure 

 that its head is translucent. 



Vampires differ greatly in the nature of their food ; a few species with a well- 

 developed tail and a large membrane between the hind-legs being exclusively 

 insect-feeders, but some subsist solely on fruits, some both on fruits and insects, 

 while others occasionally suck blood, and two or three are entirely blood- 

 suckers. The common vampire (Vampyrus spectrum), a gigantic bat of some 28 

 inches in expanse of wing, which inhabits parts of the Amazon valley, is an ugly 

 but harmless species, feeding chiefly on fruits, although it sometimes eats insects, 

 and visiting villages only in search of shelter. The large-eared vampire ( V. auritus) 

 of the same tract is rather smaller, and distinguished by possessing a short tail, the 

 common vampire being tailless. 



Another group is represented by the well-known javelin-bat (Phyllostoma 

 hastatum), a species almost as large as the common vampire, which, together with 

 two or three other Brazilian bats, has the reputation of occasionally sucking blood. 

 The long-tongued vampires take their name from their long narrow muzzles, and 

 elongated protrusile tongues; the latter organ, which has warts at the tip, being used, 

 not for injuring the skin, but for licking up the juices of soft fruits. The common 

 long-tongued vampire (Glossophaga soricina) has a well-developed membrane 

 between the hind-legs which enables it to make sudden changes in the direction 

 of its flight, thus indicating that the chief food of this species consists of insects, 

 bats with less largely developed hind-membranes not feeding on insects alone. 

 For example, this hind-membrane is but feebly developed in the short-nosed 

 vampires, which live chiefly on fruits, although one of them, the flat-nosed vampire 

 (Artibeus planirostris), was formerly accused of blood-sucking. Of the undoubted 

 blood-suckers only two genera are known, one represented by two species and the 

 other by one. The common blood-sucking vampire (Desmodus rufus), which is 

 about 3 inches in length and ranges from Central America to southern Brazil 

 and Chile, has no cheek-teeth, whereas the smaller tailless species (Dijihylla 

 ecaudata) possesses a single rudimentary pair. The last-named vampire is 

 apparently confined to Brazil. 



As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the birds of North America 



' are more or less closely related to those of the Old World, but in 



Central and South America, as well as in the West Indies, the bird-fauna is of a 



