CHIEROPTERA—ANIMALS WITH WINGED-HANDS.
FOR a long time these curious little animals puzzled the Naturalists. Aristotle defined them as Birds with wings of skin. After him, Pliny and other Naturalists fell into the same error of classifying them with the Birds; but after many centuries the different characters that fix the rank of these animals in the scale of created beings are well known, and they are placed where they belong, in the great family of Mammals, and classed as the Cheiroptera, or animals with winged-hands—as the word Cheiroptera comes from two Greek words meaning wing and hand.
All the fingers of the hand (with the exception of the thumb, which is short, has a nail, and is quite free) are immoderately long, and united by means of a transparent membrane which is without hair. This membrane covers also the arm and forearm, and is simply a prolongation of the skin of the flanks, composed of two very thin layers. It also extends down the hind legs, where it is more or less developed, according to the species; but it never reaches the toes of the feet, which are short and have nails.
It is owing to this membranous sail that Bats direct their course through the air in the same manner as Birds. When they are at rest they fold their wings around them, covering their bodies as if in a mantle, similar to our closing an umbrella to diminish its volume when it is no longer required. This comparison is still more exact when we note that the curiously long fingers of the animal perfectly correspond to the ribs or rods of the umbrella.
Bats do not descend to the ground if it can possibly be helped, for they are very awkward and slow in attempting to walk along the ground; and besides this, when on the ground they find themselves in a very inconvenient position to resume their flight. Their case is then almost the same as that of high-soaring Birds, which, full of grace and assurance aloft, are compelled to resort to the most painful efforts to ascend again from low levels.
The Bats are classed as nocturnal animals, as they hunt their prey at night, and spend the day in caverns, lofts, church spires and old ruins, or the trunks of trees. Their eyes, although small, are organized for seeing, not in complete darkness but in the twilight, or in the feeble light of the moon and stars.
THE LONG-EARED BATS.
LONG EARED BATS.
The Long-eared Bat is one of the most interesting of the whole race. Its ears are twice as long as its head, and very nearly as long as the body, being an inch and a half from the base to the point. Within these large ears are what are known as the lesser ears, which are fine and transparent, and can be expanded and contracted by their owner to produce a beautiful feathery appearance, or festoon-like foldings.
This Bat measures about eighteen inches from tip to tip of its expanded wings.
THE LONG-NOSED BATS.
LONG NOSED BATS.
There are several varieties of these Bats having a long nose and Fox-like face. The best known is commonly called Roussette by the French, because of its being generally of a red or brown color; and Kalony, or Flying Fox, by the English. It is the largest of the Bat family. There are some which attain the size of a Squirrel, and sometimes measure four feet across the wings.
The animals belonging to this family inhabit Africa, Asia and the Oceanic Islands.
THE VAMPIRES.
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.”