834 ON THE 



by instinct, that the person they are going to 

 attack, is in a sweet slumber, they generally 

 alight on the feet, arid, while the creature con- 

 tinues fanning with his enormous wings which 

 keeps one cool, he bites a bit out of the tip of 

 the great toe, so very small indeed, that the head 

 of a pin could scarcely be received into the 

 wound, which is consequently not painful ; yet 

 through this orifice he continues to suck until he 

 is obliged to disgorge. He then begins again, 

 and thus continues sucking and disgorging till he is 

 scarcely able to fly, and the sufferer has often 

 been known to sleep from time into eternity. 

 Cattle they generally bite in the ear, but always 

 in those places where the blood flows sponta- 

 neously. I observed several small heaps of 

 congealed blood all round the place where I had 

 lain upon the ground, upon examining which, 

 the surgeon judged that I had lost at least twelve 

 or fourteen ounces during the night." 



Another instance of the kind is noticed in Mr. 

 Waterton's Wanderings in South America, in 

 which it is mentioned, that a gentleman by the 

 name of Tarbat, had lost nearly twelve ounces of 

 blood from his great toe, by the bite of a Vampyre 

 Bat, in Demerara, while sleeping in the thatched 

 loft of a Planter's cottage, near the River Pau- 

 maron. 



Thus the Bat, which, diminutive in size and 



inoffensive in character, only excites, in this 



' milder climate, a pleasing interest from the pecu- 



