FLYING- FOXES— BATS— VAMPIRES. 



671 



of tlie Malay islands, " consider the great ugly flying-foxes an especial delicacy. At 

 about the beginning of the year they come in largo flocks to eat fruit, and congregate 

 during the day on some small islands in the bay, hanging by thousands on the trees, 

 especially on dead ones. They can then be easily caught or knoclied down with sticks, 

 and are brought home by basketfuls. They require to be carefully prepared, as the 

 skin and fur has a powerful foxy odor ; but they are generally cooked with abundance 

 of spices and condiments, and are really very good eating, something like hare." 



The phyllostomidge, a species of bat distinguished by having the orifices of the nos- 

 tril placed in a kind of membranous scutcheon, surmounted by a leaf-like expansion, 

 like the head of a lance, and supposed to extend in an extraordinary degree the sense 

 of smelling, are exclusively confined to the western continent. These phyllostomidae 

 are remarkable for their blood-sucking propensities, and under the name of Yampires 

 have brought the whole race of the large tropical bats into evil repute. 



Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied often saw by moonshine, or in the twilight, the 

 Guandiru {Phyllostoma hastatum), a bat five inches long, and measuring twenty-three 

 inches with outstretched wings, hover about his horses and mules while grazing after 

 their day's journey. The animals did not seem incommoded by its presence, but on 

 the following morning, he generally found them covered with blood from the shoulders 

 to the hoofs. The muscular under-lip of the phyllostoma can be completely folded 

 together in the shape of a sucking-tube, which, after the sharp canine teeth have pen- 

 etrated the skin, continues to pump forth the blood. Even man himself is liable to 

 the attacks of the larger phyllostomidae. 



*' Some years ago," says Mr. Waterton, " I was in Demarara with a Scotch gentle- 

 man, by name Tarbet. We hung our hammocks in the thatched loft of a planter's 

 house. Next morning I heard this gentleman muttering in his hammock, and now 

 and then letting fall an imprecation or two, just about the time he ought to have been 

 saying his morning prayers. * What is the matter, Sir ? ' said I, softly : ' is anything 

 amiss ? ' * What's the matter ? ' answered he surlily ; * why, the vampires have been 

 sucking me to death.' As soon as there was light enough, I went to his hammock, 

 and saw it much stained with blood. * There,' said he, thrusting his foot out of the 

 hammock, ' see how these infernal imps have been drawing my life's blood.' On exam- 

 ining his foot, I found the vampire had tapped his great toe : there was a wound 

 somewhat less than t.hat made by a leech ; the blood was still oozing from it. I con- 

 jectured he might have lost from ten to twelve ounces of blood. Whilst examining 

 it, I think I put him into a worse humor by remarking that an European surgeon 

 would not have been so generous as to have blooded him without making a charge. 

 He looked up in my face, but did not say a word ; I saw he was of opinion that I had 

 better have spared this piece of ill-timed levity." 



Captain Stedraan, while in Surinam, was attacked in a similar way. " On waking," 

 he says, " about four o'clock one morning in my hammock, I was extremely alarmed 

 at finding myself weltering in congealed blood, yet without feeling any pain whatever. 

 Having started up, I ran for the surgeon, with a fire-brand in one hand, and all over be- 

 smeared with gore. The mystery, however, was soon solved, for I then found I had 

 been bitten by the vampire or spectre of Guiana." Other instances of the same kind 

 are mentioned by Tschudi, Schomburgk, Azara (who was phlebotomized no less than 

 four times by the vampire,) and other naturalists of equal repute, so that there is no 



