Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
FIG. 117. Ternat Bat.
FIG. 118. Bull Dog Bat
FIG: 119. Senegal Bat
THE vampyre[Y] is smaller than the rougette, which is itself smaller than the roussette. The first, when it flies, seems to be of the size of a pigeon, the second of a raven, and the third of a large hen. Both the roussette and rougette have well shaped heads, short ears, and round noses, nearly like that of a dog. Of the vampyre, on the contrary, the nose is long, the aspect as hideous as that of the ugliest bats; its head is unshapely, and its ears are large, open, and very erect; its noise is deformed, its nostrils resembling a funnel, with a membrane at the top, which rises up in the form of a sharp horn, or cock’s-comb, and greatly heightens the deformity of its face. There is no doubt, therefore, that this species is different from the Ternat bats. It is an animal not less mischievous than it is deformed; it is the pest of man, and the torment of other animals. In confirmation of this, the authentic testimony of M. de la Condamine may be produced. “The bats,” says he, “which suck the blood of horses, mules, and even men, when they do guard against it by sleeping under the shelter of a pavilion, are a scourge common to most of the hot countries of America. Of these some are of a monstrous size. At Borja, and several other places, they have entirely destroyed the large cattle which the missionaries had brought thither, and which had begun to multiply.” These facts are confirmed by many other historians and travellers. Petrus Martyr, who wrote not long after the conquest of South America, says, that there are bats in the isthmus of Darien which suck the blood of men and animals while they are asleep, so as to much weaken, and frequently kill them. Jumilla, Don George Juan, and Don Ant. de Ulloa, assert the same. Though from the above testimonies it appears that these blood-sucking bats are numerous, particularly in South America, yet we have not been able to obtain a single individual. Seba has presented us with a figure and description of this animal, of which the nose is so extraordinary, that I am astonished travellers should not have remarked a deformity so palpable as to strike the most superficial beholder; possibly the animal of which Seba gives the figure, is not the same with that which we distinguish by the name of the vampyre, or blood-sucker; It is also possible, that this figure of Seba’s is false or exaggerated, or at least that this deformed nose is only a monstrous accidental variety; though of these deformities there may be found permanent examples in some other species of bats. By time alone will these obscurities be removed.
[Y] An American animal called the Great American Bat, or Flying Dog of New Spain.