ANIMALS. 373 



ticularly in Madagascar, along the coasts of Africa and Malabar, 

 where it is usually seen about the size of a large hen. When 

 they repose, they stick themselves to the tops of the tallest trees, 

 and hang with their heads downward. But when they are in 

 motion, nothing can be more formidable : they are seen in clouds, 

 darkening the air, as well by day as by night, destroying the ripe 

 fruits of the country, and sometimes settling upon animals, and 

 man himself: they devour, indiscriminately, fruits, flesh, and 

 insects, and drink the juice of the palm-tree ; they are heard at 

 night in the forests at more than two miles distance, with a hor- 

 rible din, but at the approach of day they usually begin to retire : 

 nothing is safe from their depredations ; they destroy fowls and 

 domestic animals, unless preserved with the utmost care, and 

 often fasten upon the inhabitants themselves, attack them in the 

 face, and inflict very terrible wounds. In short, as some have 

 already observed, the ancients seem to have taken their ideas of 

 harpies from these fierce and voracious creatiu-es, as they both 

 concur in many parts of the description, being equally deformed, 

 greedy, uncleanly, and cruel. 



An animal not so formidable, but more mischievous than 

 these, is the American Vampyre. This is still less than the 

 former, but more deformed, and still more numerous. It is 

 lurnished with a horn like the rhinoceros bat ; and its ears are 

 extremely long. The other kinds generally resort to the forest, 

 and the most deserted places ; but these come into towns and 

 cities, and, after sunset, when they begin to fly, cover the streets 

 like a canopy.' They are the common pest both of men and 

 animals ; they efl^ectually destroy the one, and often disti'ess the 

 other. " They are," says UUoa, " the most expert blood-letters 

 in the world. The inhabitants of those warm latitudes being 

 obliged, by the excessive heats, to leave open the doors and 

 wuidows of the chambers where they sleep, the vampyres enter, 

 and if they find any part of the body exposed, they never fail to 

 fasten upon it. There they continue to suck the blood -, and it 

 often happens that the person dies under the operation. They 

 insinuate their tooth into a vein, with all the art of the most ex- 

 perienced surgeon, continuing to exhaust the body until they are 

 satiated. I have been assured," continues he, " by persons of the 

 strictest veracity, that such an accident has happened to tbein j 

 1 Ulloa, vol i. p. 58. 



