Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/253

Rh In the evening, a species of bat, termed by Buffon, the vampyre, or flying dog, of New Spain, (because it sucks the blood of men and animals, while they are asleep, without causing sufficient pain to awaken them;) sometimes enters apartments which are contiguous to orange trees.—During my stay in Guatimala, I killed one in my own room, and had the opportunity of examining the mouth of the animal, through a powerful microscope.

Buffon says, “I have frequently thought it worth while to examine, how it is possible that these animals, should suck the blood of a person asleep, without causing at the same time a pain so sensible as to awake him. Were they to cut the flesh with their teeth, or with their claws, the pain of the bite would effectually rouse any of the human species, however soundly asleep. With their tongue only, is it possible for them to make such minute apertures in the skin, as to imbibe the blood through them, and to open the veins without causing an acute pain. The tongue of the vampyre, I have not had an opportunity to observe; but that of several rousettes (a somewhat different species, found only in Africa, and the southern parts of Asia,) which Mr. Daubenton has attentively examined, seems to indicate the possibility of the fact; it is sharp and full of prickles directed backward, and it appears that