Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/559

Rh, among very many others, all the English bats without a nose-leaf; 2. The Rhinolophidœ, which includes, among very many others, the English leaf-nosed bats; and 3. The Phyllostomidœ, or leaf-nosed bats of America.

The other group of bats are made up of those, mostly of large size, called flying-foxes, of which we have 1 specimens now living in the Zoölogical Gardens. They are confined to the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Old World and the Pacific, but are not found even in the hottest regions of South America. They have grinding teeth, which are not drawn out into sharp points, but have their crowns marked simply with a longitudinal furrow, in accordance with their fruit-eating habits, and their stomach (also in accordance with this habit) is much prolonged at its pyloric, or more specially digestive, end.

Certain leaf-nosed bats of South America go by the formidable name of vampires, from their reputed blood-sucking habits.

Although such a habit could only have been attributed erroneously to the entire group, one certain kind of this group is very truly blood-sucking, and its organization is peculiarly and very strikingly modified to efficiently subserve this function.

The bat in question is called Desmodus, and the truth as to its blood-sucking habit has been fully established by the testimony of Mr. Darwin. He tells us: "The vampire-bat is often the cause of much trouble, by biting the horses on their withers. The injury is generally not so much owing to the loss of blood as to the inflammation which the pressure of the saddle afterward produces. The whole circumstance having been lately doubted in England, I was therefore fortunate in being present when one (Desmodus d'Orbignyi) 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 from being swollen and bloody. The third day afterward we rode the horse, without any ill effects."

The special modifications of structure which harmonize with this