VAMPIRES. 
3°3 
bats charged with this crime as having their tongues armed at the tip with horny 
papillae—which would seem to point to the under-mentioned long-tongued vampires,, 
whose food is insects and fruit. He alludes, however, in both places to the blood¬ 
sucking bats as javelin-bats; and although there is evidently some confusion in 
regard to the tongue question, it is difficult to believe that two independent observers 
should have been so deceived as to charge members of one group of bats with an 
attack committed by those of another. 
The Long-Tongued Vampires. 
Genera Glossophaga, Chceronycteris, etc. 
A group of several genera of rather small or medium-sized bats are at once 
distinguished from the other members of the present family by their long and 
narrow muzzles, and their slender, elongated tongues, which can be protruded for a 
considerable distance beyond the mouth. At their extremities these tongues are 
armed on the upper surface with a number of long, thread-like papillae; and it 
was long considered that these papillae 
were employed for abrading the skin of 
animals previous to the process of blood¬ 
sucking. It now appears, however, that 
their use is either to extract the soft pulp 
from the interior of hard-rinded fruits, or 
to lick out insects from the tubes of 
flowers. That some of the species feed on 
fruits has been ascertained by direct obser¬ 
vation ; but the discovery of the remains 
of insects in the stomachs of others proves that the diet of all is not of the same- 
kind. One of the species which is known to feed on insects is the Soricine long- 
tongued vampire {Glossophaga sovicina ), and since this species has a well-developed 
membrane between the hind legs, while in some of those subsisting entirely on 
fruit the same membrane is very short, Dr. Dobson considers that we may predicate 
the nature of the food of any given species by the size of this membrane. The 
species with the longest tail-membrane will be the best flyers, and consequently 
those best suited for the capture of insects. 
Writing of Sezekorn’s long-tongued vampire ( Phyllonycteris sezekorni), of 
which some individuals were taken from a large colony in a cave in Jamaica, Mi. 
Osburn describes their mode of feeding on the fruit of the so-called clammy cherry: 
“ The tongue was rapidly protruded and drawn in again, and the juice and softer 
pulp cleared away with great rapidity. I noticed he was very particular in 
clearing out the bit of loose skin of berry, and licked my fingers clean of the juice 
spilt on them, carefully cleaning out any that had collected under the nail. I then 
got another berry. The bat was hanging against the edge of the box, its under¬ 
surface against the side; and as I held the berry a little distance oft to see the 
action of the tongue, it had, whilst feeding, to bend the neck so as to raise the 
head a little; this seemed to fatigue it. It therefore raised itself on one wrist, 
HEAD OF LONG-TONGUED VAMPIRE ( Chceronycteris ). 
(From Dobson.) 
