676 CHIROPTERA 
the skull and teeth. Artibeus, with six species, includes the well- 
known frugivorous Bat, 4. perspicillatus. Waterton believed that 
A. planivostris, a common Bat in British Guiana, usually found in 
the roofs of houses, and now known to be frugivorous, was the true 
blood-sucking Vampire. Stenoderma achradophilum, found in Jamaica 
and Cuba, associated with Artibeus perspicillatus, from which it is 
scarcely distinguishable externally except by its much smaller size, 
differs altogether in the absence of the horizontal plate of the 
palatal bones. Sturnira lilium, while 
agreeing with the above in the form of 
the nose-leaf and ears, differs from all 
the species of the family in its longi- 
tudinally-grooved molars, which resemble 
those of the Pteropodide more closely than 
those of any other Bats; and the presence 
of tufts of long differently coloured hairs 
comets Eee over glands in the sides of the neck shows 
1G. 321.—Head of Centurio senex. : 
(Dobson, Cat, Chiropt. Brit. Mus.) another common character still more 
remarkable, which can scarcely be con- 
sidered the result of adaptive change. Centurio senex is the type 
of a genus distinguished from Stenoderma and other genera of this 
division by the absence of a distinct nose-leaf ; its facial aspect, as 
shown in Fig. 321, is altogether bizarre. 
In the last or Desmodont division the muzzle is conical and 
short; there is a distinct nose-leaf; the interfemoral membrane is 
very short; and the tail is wanting. Dentition: 7 3, ¢ 41, p 3, 
m 3 total 24 or 20. Upper incisors very large, trenchant, 
occupying the whole space between the canines; premolars very 
narrow, with sharp-edged longitudinal crowns; molars rudimentary 
or wanting; stomach greatly elongated, intestiniform. There are only 
two genera, the single species of each of which are the true blood- 
sucking Vampires. They appear to be confined chiefly to the 
forest-clad parts, and their attacks on men and other warm-blooded 
animals were noticed by some of the earliest writers. Thus Peter 
Martyr (Anghiera), who wrote soon after the conquest of South 
America, says that in the Isthmus of Darien there were Bats which 
sucked the blood of men and cattle when asleep to such a degree 
as to kill them. Condamine, a writer of the eighteenth century, 
remarks that at Borja (Ecuador) and in other places they had 
entirely destroyed the cattle introduced by the missionaries. Sir 
Robert Schomburgk relates that at Wicki, on the river Berbice, no 
fowls could be kept on account of the ravages of these creatures, 
which attacked their combs, causing them to appear white from loss 
of blood. Although these Bats were known thus early to Europeans, 
the species to which they belonged were not determined until about 
sixty years ago, several of the large frugivorous species having been 
