VAMPIRES. 



301 



first time I saw one in my chamber, wheeling heavily round and round, I mistook 

 it for a pigeon, thinking that a tame one had escaped from the premises of one of 

 my neighbours. I opened the stomachs of several of these bats, and found them 

 to contain a mass of pulp and seeds of fruits, mingled with a few remains of 

 insects. The natives say they devour ripe cajus and guavas on trees in the 

 gardens ; but on comparing the seeds taken from their stomachs with those of all 

 cultivated trees of Ega, I found they were unlike any of them. It is therefore 



THE GREAT VAMPIRE-BAT (\ nat. size). 



probable that they generally resort to the forest to feed, coming to the village in 

 the morning to sleep, because they find it more secure from animals of prey than 

 their natural abodes in the woods." 



It will be observed that Mr. Bates speaks of the great vampire as the vampire, 

 but, according to Dr. Dobson, this title is more properly applicable to the blood- 

 sucking vampires noticed below. While the great vampire is entirely without a 

 tail, the lesser vampire ( V. auritus) has a small rudiment of that appendage. The 

 latter species serves to connect the former with an allied genus of bats known as 

 Lophostoma, in which the nose-leaf is narrower in front, and the chin has a central 

 naked space marked by small warts. It also shows resemblances to the javelin-bats, 

 mentioned on the next page, in the presence of a glandular opening near the top of 

 the breast-bone. 



