VAMPIRES. 
301 
first time I saw one in my chamber, wheeling heavily round and round, I mistook 
it for a pigeon, thinking that a tame one had escaped from the premises of one of 
my neighbours. I opened the stomachs of several of these bats, and found them 
to contain a mass of pulp and seeds of fruits, mingled with a few remains of 
insects. The natives say they devour ripe cajus and guavas on trees in the 
gardens; but on comparing the seeds taken from their stomachs with those of all 
cultivated trees of Ega, I found they were unlike any of them. It is therefore 
THE GREAT VAMPIRE-BAT (J liat. size). 
probable that they generally resort to the forest to feed, coming to the village in 
the morning to sleep, because they find it more secure from animals of prey than 
their natural abodes in the woods.” 
It will be observed that Mr. Bates speaks of the great vampire as the vampire, 
but, according to Dr. Dobson, this title is more properly applicable to the blood¬ 
sucking vampires noticed below. While the great vampire is entirely without a 
tail, the lesser vampire ( V. auritus ) has a small rudiment of that appendage. The 
latter species serves to connect the former with an allied genus of bats known as 
Lophostoma, in which the nose-leaf is narrower in front, and the chin has a central 
naked space marked by small warts. It also shows resemblances to the javelin-bats, 
mentioned on the next page, in the presence of a glandular opening near the top of 
the breast-bone. 
