THE BATS. 37

the bat manages so adroitly, that the victim does not discover
that anything has happened until the morning, when a pool
of blood betrays the visit of the vampire. “The Vampire
Bat,” says Professor Darwin, “is often the cause of much
trouble by biting the horses on their withers. The injury
is not so much owing to the loss of blood, as to the inflammation
which the pressure of the saddle afterwards produces. The
whole circumstance has lately been doubted in England. I
was therefore fortunate in being present when one was actually
caught on a horse’s back. We were bivouacking late one
evening, near Coquimbo, in Chili, when my servant, noticing
that one of the horses was very restive, went to see what was
the matter, and fancying he could distinguish something,
suddenly put his hand on the beast’s withers, and secured
the vampire. In the morning the spot where the bite had
been inflicted was easily distinguished by its being slightly
swoilen and bloody. The third day afterwards we rode the
horse without any ill effects.”

A Traveller's Captain Steadman, in his “ Narrative of a Five
Uxperience. Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes
_ of Strinam,” relates, that on waking about four o’clock one
morning in his hammock, he was extremely alarmed at finding
himself weltering in congealed blood, and without feeling any
pain whatever. “The mystery was,” continues Captain Stead-
man, “that I had been bitten by the Vampyre or Spectre of
Guiana, which is also called the Mying Dog of New Spain,
and by the Spaniards, Perrovolador. This is no other than
a bat of monstrous size, that sucks the blood from men and
cattle while they are fast asleep, even sometimes till they die;
and as the manner in which they proceed is truly wonderful,
I shall endeavour to give a distinct account of it. Knowing,
by instinct, that the person they intend to attack is in a
sound slumber, they generally alight near the feet, where,
while the creature continues fanning with his enormous wings,
which keeps one cool, he bites a piece out of the tip of the