256 Notice of the Sanguivorous habits of the [No. 123. 



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 that 

 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 no- 

 thing 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 Steedman 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 Megaderms. The 

 sanguivorous propensities of certain Bats inhabiting South America have 

 long been notorious, but the fact has not heretofore been observed of 

 any 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 to obtain (to a greater or less extent) among the 

 larger species, if not throughout the whole extensive allied genus of 

 Rhinolophus, (or the horse-shoe Bats,) which, like Megaderma, are pecu- 

 liar to the Eastern world. 



It may appear strange, that with the multitudinous attestations 

 ascribing blood- sucking habits to certain Bats of South America, natu- 

 ralists have been found unwilling to credit the statement, as instanced by 

 Mr. W. S. McLeay, who, in a note appended to the remark that a 



* There are, it is true, certain vague statements, but quite unworthy of credit, 

 ascribing sanguivorous habits to the Pteropodes. Thus De Vaux, in his * Letters 

 from the Mauritius,' (p. 65), describes these animals to " feed indiscriminately on 

 fruit, small warm-blooded animals, and insects, as well as to suck the blood of men 

 and cattle." But were this the case, the fact would assuredly be well known in India, 

 where " Flying Foxes," as they are termed, are so very abundant. Of one brought 

 alive into France, it is indeed stated, that " during the voyage, on one occasion when 

 its food ran short, it fastened upon a dead fowl, and made a meal of part of it ; and 

 from that time animal food was occasionally given to it :" but I doubt much whether 

 this was a natural appetite of the creature, from observation of one exhibited in Eng- 

 land by Mr. Cross, of the Surrey Zoological Gardens, and puffed by him in advertise- 

 ments and hand -bills as the wondrous " Fampyre." This animal would eat nothing but 

 fruit and vegetables, and constantly refused insects, a variety of which I offered to it. 

 It was tame, and appeared fond of being noticed. Hence I am also inclined to doubt 

 a statement which I have somewhere met with, to the effect that the little Kiodote is 

 partly insectivorous, this animal being known with certainty to feed largely on the 

 fruit of the Eugenia. 



