like
appendage attached to their upper lip; they 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 a number of 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 redoubtable
accounts, and which are known to have nearly destroyed the first
establishment of Europeans in the new world. 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 three and four 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 wholly 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 piuncture which 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 bats attack man as well as
animals is certain, for 1 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.
It
was late in the afternoon when we left Riachiio, and we halted about a
league beyond it, under some trees, by the side of a small marsh,
having been informed that the next watering place was more than a
league further on. We were now travelling along the Chapada, or flat
top of the Serra, and I observed that the little streams wc had been
crossing for some time all flowed
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