34 THE VAMPIRE BAT. 



is scarcely able to fly, and the sufferer has often been known to 

 pass from time to eternity. Cattle they generally bite in the 

 ear ; but always in places where the blood flows spontaneously. 

 Having applied tobacco ashes as the best remedy, and washed 

 the gore from myself and hammock, I observed several small 

 heaps of congealed blood, all round the place where I had lain 

 upon the ground j on examining which, the surgeon judged that 

 I had lost, at least, twelve or fourteen ounces of blood." * 



Waterton says there are two species of vampires in Demerara ; 

 that the smaller one confines its attacks chiefly to birds, while 

 the larger one sucks men and other animals. " I could only 

 find," says he, "two species of bats in Guiana with a membrane 

 rising from the nose. Both these kinds suck animals and eat fruit ; 

 while those bats without a membrane on the nose seem to live 

 entirely upon fruits and insects. While I was passing a day or 

 two at the house of Mr. Walcott, who lived high up the River 

 Demerara, the vampires sucked his son, who was about ten or 

 eleven years old, some of his fowls, and his jackass. The youth 

 showed me his forehead at daybreak : the wound was still bleed- 

 ing apace, and I examined it with minute attention. The poor 

 ass was doomed to be a prey to these sanguinary imps of night ; 

 he looked like misery steeped in vinegar. I saw by the numer- 

 ous sores on his body, and by his apparent debility, that he 

 would soon sink under his afflictions. Mr. Walcott told me that 

 it was with the greatest difficulty he could keep a few fowls, on 

 account of the smaller vampire $ and that the larger kind were 

 killing his poor ass by inches. It was the only quadruped he 

 had brought up with him into the forest. Some years ago I 

 went to the river Paumaron, with Mr. Tarbet, a Scotch gentle- 

 man. We hung our hammocks in the thatched loft of a planter's 

 house. Next morning I heard this gentleman muttering in his 

 hammock, and now and then letting fall an imprecation or two, 

 just about the time he ought to have been saying his morning 

 prayers. As soon as there was light enough, I went to his 

 hammock, and saw it much stained with blood. ' Here,' said he, 

 * Narrative of an Expedition to Surinam (1806). 



