388 THE ANATOMY OF VERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 



would appear that the blood swallowed by the animal at first 

 passes, to be thence slowly drawn along the intestine. 



Mr. Darwin* thus speaks of the habits of Desmodus 

 ly Orbignyi : 



" The Vampire Bat is often the cause of much trouble by 

 bitino- the horses on their withers. The injury is generally 

 not so much owing to the loss of blood as to the inflammation 

 which the pressure of the saddle afterward produces. The 

 whole circumstance has lately been doubted in England. I 

 was therefore fortunate in being present when one was act- 

 ually caught on a horse's back. We were bivouacking late 

 one evening near Coquimbo, in Chili, when my servant, noti- 

 cing that the horses were very restless, went to see what was 

 the matter, and, fancying he could distinguish sometliing, sud- 

 denly put his hand on the beast's withers and secured the 

 Vampire. In the morning the spot where the bite had been 

 inflicted was easily distinguished, from being slightly swollen 

 and bloody. The third day afterward we rode the horse with- 

 out any ill eflFects." 



IV. The Primates.— The Primates have two pectoral 

 mammae, and, rarely, additional ones upon the abdomen. In- 

 cisor and molar teeth are always present, and, with one excep- 

 tion, canines. The incisors are never more than two, nor are 

 there more than three premolars and three molars, on each 

 side, above and below. 



Saving individual exceptions, which occur in one genus, 

 and may be regarded as abnormal, the hallux possesses a flat 

 nail. The hallux differs in form from the other digits of the 

 foot, and is so disposed as to be capable of more or less exten- 

 sive motion in adduction and abduction ; and, very generally, 

 it is opposable to the other digits of the foot. 



The Primates are divisible into — a. the Lemuridm, b, the 

 Siniiadm, and c, the Anthropidm. 



a. The first of these divisions, the Lemuridm, is more 

 widely separated, anatomically, from the other two, than these 

 are from one another,f and it contains some forms which 

 very closely approximate to the Insectivora, while others are 

 nearly affined to the Rodentia. 



* "Voyage of the Beagle," Mammalia, p. 2. 



■f On tlie strength of these difl'erences M. Gratiolet relegated the Lemurs to 

 the Insectieorn,; and Mr. Mivart, in his valuable paper ''On the Axial Skele- 

 ton in the Primates," publislied in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 for 1855, divides the Primates into two sub-orders, Lemnroidea and Anthro- 

 poidea. 



