VAMPIRES. 303 



bats charged with this crime as having their tongues armed at the tip with horny 

 papillae which would seem to point to the under-mentioned long-tongued vampires, 

 whose food is insects and fruit. He alludes, however, in both places to the blood- 

 sucking bats as javelin-bats ; and although there is evidently some confusion in 

 regard to the tongue question, it is difficult to believe that two independent observers 

 should have been so deceived as to charge members of one group of bats with an 

 attack committed by those of another. 



THE LONG-TONGUED VAMPIRES. 

 Genus Glossophaga, etc. 



A group of several genera of rather small or medium-sized bats are at once 

 distinguished from the other members of the present family by their long and 

 narrow muzzles, and their slender, elongated tongues, which can be protruded for a 

 considerable distance beyond the mouth. At their extremities these tongues are 

 armed on the upper surface with a number of long, thread-like papillae; and it 

 was long considered that these papillae 

 were employed for abrading the skin of 

 animals previous to the process of blood- 

 sucking. It now appears, however, that 

 their use is either to extract the soft pulp 

 from the interior of hard-rinded fruits, or 

 to lick out insects from the tubes of 

 flowers. That some of the species feed on 



. , , n i-i-iT i HEAD OP LONG-TONGUED VAMPIRE 



fruits has been ascertained by direct obser- (From Dobson .) 



vation ; but the discovery of the remains 



of insects in the stomachs of others proves that the diet of all is not of the same 

 kind. One of the species which is known to feed on insects is the Soricine long- 

 tongued vampire (Glossophaga soricina), and since this species has a well-developed 

 membrane between the hind legs, while in some of those subsisting entirely on 

 fruit the same membrane is very short, Dr. Dobson considers that we may predicate 

 the nature of the food of any given species by the size of this membrane. The 

 species with the longest tail-membrane will be the best flyers, and consequently 

 those best suited for the capture of insects. 



Writing of Sezekorn's long-tongued vampire (Phyllonycteris sezekorni), of 

 which some individuals were taken from a large colony in a cave in Jamaica, Mr. 

 Osburn describes their mode of feeding on the fruit of the so-called clammy cherry : 

 " The tongue was rapidly protruded and drawn in again, and the juice and softer 

 pulp cleared away with great rapidity. I noticed he was very particular in 

 clearing out the bit of loose skin of berry, and licked my fingers clean of the juice 

 spilt on them, carefully cleaning out any that had collected under the nail. I then 

 got another berry. The bat was hanging against the edge of the box, its under- 

 surface against the side ; and as I held the berry a little distance off to see the 

 action of the tongue, it had, whilst feeding, to bend the neck so as to raise the 

 head a little; this seemed to fatigue it. It therefore raised itself on one wrist, 



