,
some of which have been commonly named Vampires in consequence, after
the ghostly blood-suckers, which were formerly the objects of so much
superstitious terror in Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe; but
so far as can be made out from a consideration of the evidence, a
verdict of "not proven," at all events, must be arrived at in the case
of all but two species, which constitute a little group distinguished
by what is apparently a special organization adapting them to this
peculiar diet. These wretched little beasts, which only measure two
and a half or three inches in length, are furnished in the upper jaw
with a single pair of incisor or front teeth, but these are of great
size and strength, triangular in form, and so excessively sharp that
when the creatures are seized they can draw blood from the hand of
their captor by what seems a mere touch. This extreme sharpness of
their weapons enables them, when attacking sleeping men or animals, to
slice off a small portion of skin almost without causing any pain, and
the little oval wounds thus produced, like the similar surface-cuts
which a careless shaver sometimes inflicts upon his chin, bleed with
particular freedom. The Desmodonts, as these true Vampires are called,
will attack horses, mules, and cattle, which they generally wound on
the back, near the spine, often in the region of the withers; and they
also bite the combs of domestic fowls, and any part of the human body
that they can get at. In the case of man, however, according to most
authorities, the extremity of the great toe is the favorite part; and
some writers, perhaps possessed of a strong poetical vein, have given
wonderful descriptions of the artfulness with which these little
blood-suckers make their approaches, and keep their victim comfortably
asleep during the operation by fanning him with their wings. In fact,
the Vampire Bats had so bad a reputation from the accounts given by
travellers, that they seemed to be veritable scourges of the countries
in which they live, but so far as can be made out from the most
trustworthy reports, the mischief they cause may be summed up under
two heads, namely, weakness produced by loss of blood, which continues
to flow from the wounds long after the Bats have drunk their fill and
gone quietly home to rest, and inflammatory affections, caused either
by the irritation of the bite in the case of people of a bad habit of
body, or by the friction of the saddle or