THE VAMPIRES.
The Vampires are the most dreaded of the Bat family. They are characterized by two nasal leaves situated above the upper lip. Wonderful tales have been told of their appetite for blood, and although their power of sucking the blood of the larger animals has been exaggerated, the tales concerning them are by no means devoid of foundation, neither are we surprised that such spectral visitants should have received the once terrible name of “vampire,” by which they are designated.
Mr. Gardner, during his travels in the interior of Brazil, stopped at Riachao. He says:
“For several nights before we reached this place, the Horses were greatly annoyed by Bats, which are very numerous on this sierra, where they inhabit the caves in the limestone rocks; during the night we remained at Riachao the whole of my troop suffered more from their attacks than they had done before on any previous occasion. All exhibited one or more streams of clotted blood on their shoulders and backs, which had run from the wounds made by these animals, and from which they had sucked their fill of blood.
“When a small sore exists on the back of a Horse, they always prefer making an incision in that place. The owner of the house where we stopped informed me he was not able to rear Cattle here, on account of the destruction made by the Bats among the Calves, so that he was obliged to keep them at a distance, in a lower part of the country; even the Pigs were not able to escape their attacks.”
These singular creatures, which are productive of so much annoyance, are peculiar to the continent of America, being distributed over the immense extent of territory between Paraguay and the Isthmus of Darien. Their tongue, which is capable of considerable extension, is furnished at its extremity with papillae, which appear to be so arranged as to form an organ of suction, and their lips have also tubercles symmetrically arranged. These are the organs by which they draw the life-blood both from man and beast. These animals are the famous Vampires of which various travellers have given such wonderful accounts.
Gardner says: “The molar teeth of the true Vampire, or Spectre Bat, are of the most carnivorous character, the first being short and almost plain, the others sharp and cutting, and terminating in two or three points. Their rough tongue has been supposed to be the instrument employed for abrading the skin, so as to enable them more readily to abstract the blood; but Zoologists are now agreed that such supposition is altogether groundless. Having carefully examined in many cases the wounds thus made on Horses, Mules, Pigs and other animals, observations that have been confirmed by information received from the inhabitants of the northern parts of Brazil, I am led to believe that the puncture the Vampire makes in the skin of animals is effected by the sharp hooked nail of its thumb, and that from the wound thus made it abstracts the blood by the suctorial powers of its lips and tongue. That these animals attack men is certain, for I have frequently been shown the scars of their punctures in the toes of many who had suffered from their attacks, but I never met with a recent case. They grow to a large size, and I have killed some that measure two feet between the tips of the wings.”
A very similar account of the Vampires is given by Humboldt:
“Our great Dog was bitten, or as the Indians say, stung at the point of the nose by some enormous Bats that hovered round our hammocks. The Dog’s wound was very small and round, and though he uttered a plaintive cry when he felt himself bitten, it was not from pain, but because he was frightened at the sight of the Bats, which came out from beneath our hammocks. These accidents are much more rare than is believed even in the country itself. In the course of several years, notwithstanding we slept so often in the open air, in climates where Vampire Bats and other species are so common, we were never wounded. Besides, the puncture is in no way dangerous, and in general causes so little pain that it often does not awaken the person till after the Bat has withdrawn.”