1872.] CAPT.T. HUTTON ON HIMALAYAN BATS. 713 



thick perpendicular rib running up through the middle ; there is 

 no tail. 



Although perhaps from the character of the mouth it might have 

 been inferred that the habits of this animal were sanguivorous, yet 

 nothing of the kind appears to have been suspected until the fact 

 was made known by Mr. Blyth, who records the circumstance in an 

 interesting notice in the ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta,' 

 vol. xi. p. 225 : — 



" Chancing," says this observer, " one evening to see a rather large 

 Bat enter an outhouse, from which there was no other egress than by 

 the doorway, I was fortunate in being able to procure a light, and 

 thus proceed to the capture of the animal. Upon finding itself 

 pursued, it took three or four turns round the apartment, when down 

 dropped what at the moment I supposed to be its young, and which 

 I deposited in my handkerchief. After a somewhat tedious chase I 

 then secured the object of my pursuit, which proved to be a fine 

 pregnant female of Megaderma lyra. I then looked at the other Bat 

 which I had picked up, and, to my surprise, found it to be a small 

 Vesper tilio, nearly allied to the European V.pipistrellus, which is ex- 

 ceedingly abundant, not only here, but apparently throughout India, 

 being the same also, to all appearance, as a small species which my 

 friend Dr. Cantor procured in Chusan. The individual now referred 

 to was feeble from loss of blood, which it was evident the Megaderma 

 had been sucking from a large and still bleeding wound under and 

 behind the ear ; and the very obviously suctorial form of the mouth 

 of the vampyre was of itself sufficient to hint the strong probability 

 of such being the case. During the very short time that elapsed 

 before I entered the outhouse, it did not appear that the depredator 

 had once alighted; but I am satisfied that it sucked the vital current 

 from its victim as it flew, having probably seized it on the wing, and 

 that it was seeking a quiet nook where it might devour the body at 

 leisure. I kept both animals wrapped separately in my handker- 

 chief till the next morning, when, procuring a convenient cage, I first 

 put in the Megaderma, and after observing it some time I placed the 

 other Bat with it. No sooner was the latter perceived than the other 

 fastened on it with the ferocity of a tiger, again seizing it behind the 

 ear, and made several efforts to fly off with it ; but finding it must 

 needs stay within the precincts of the cage, it soon hung by the hind 

 legs to one side of its prison, and after sucking its victim till no more 

 blood was left, commenced devouring it, and soon left nothing but 

 the head and some portions of the limbs. The voidings observed 

 very shortly afterwards in its cage resembled clotted blood, which 

 will explain the statement of Stedman and others concerning masses 

 of congealed blood being always observed near a patient who has been 

 attacked by a South-American vampyre. Such, then, is the mode 

 of subsistence of the Megaderma. The sanguivorous propensities of 

 certain Bats inhabiting South America have long been notorious, but 

 the fact has not heretofore been observed in the Old World ; and the 

 circumstance of one kind of Bat preying upon another is altogether 

 new, though I think it not improbable that the same will be found 



