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.”