THE TRUE VAMPIRES 



167 



be quite powerful, the blood is soon flowing freely. Fortu- 

 nately, blood-poisoning is not an attendant evil of the vam- 

 pire's bite, and the wound seldom becomes painful. 



The common Javelin Bat measures a little less than 4 

 inches in length of head and body, and in color is reddish 

 brown. All the other true vampires are smaller, and all are 



BONNETED BAT. 



Promops calif amicus . (After Harrison Allen.) 



practically tailless, the parachute membrane stretching be- 

 tween the legs, quite down to the feet, without the support 

 of tail vertebrae. Naturally, these creatures are widely 

 known; for any bat which lives upon warm blood, always 

 drawn from a living fountain, is bound to acquire wide no- 

 toriety and a very evil reputation. The skull of a Javelin 

 Bat, seen in profile, looks very much like the skull of a minia- 

 ture wolf. 



In order to illustrate once more how easily a harmless 

 animal can acquire an evil reputation, and further empha- 

 size the necessity of taking direct evidence before pronoun- 

 cing a verdict, we introduce a 28-inch bat from South Amer- 



