3*2 THE VAMPIRE BAT. 



It is, indeed, a popular notion, and perhaps not an unfounded 

 one, that bats will descend chimneys and gnaw the bacon and 

 other meats, suspended there to be smoke dried. 



Bats are said to drink on the wing by sipping the surface of 

 pools or streams, in the same way as swallows do, 



From the time of Pliny, till recently, bats have been reported 

 to produce two young ones at a time ; but four females of the 

 great bat (V. noctula) and five of the present species, which were 

 procured by Mr. George Daniell, had only a single one. 



THE SPECTRE, OR VAMPIRE BAT. (Phyllostoma spectrum.) 



All the species of the genus Phyllostoma are natives of America. 

 They differ from our bats in several respects, but especially in 

 the tongue, which is very extensible, and terminates in papillae, 

 which appear to be so disposed as to form an organ of suction. 



In the places they inhabit they seem to be very abundant. 

 Mr. Foster tells us, that he has seen as many as five hundred 

 hanging, some by their fore-feet and others by their hind-feet, 

 to a large tree in one of the Friendly Islands j and about twenty 

 thousand are said to have been seen within the space of a mile 

 at Rose Hill, New South Wales. The author of Notes of Voyages 

 made from Canton in the Ship Morrison (New York, 1839), says, 

 the Burmese bats, which are as large as a crow, with a head 

 shaped like that of a dog, and a thick long tongue, well adapted 



