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I shot a great many as they hung from the rafters, and the negroes having mounted with ladders to the roof outside, routed out from beneath the caves many hundreds of them, including young broods. There were altogether four species two belonging to the genus Dysopes, one to Phyllostoma, and the fourth to Glossophaga.
Any part left naked will be attacked by the phyllostoma, but they seem to have a preference for the tip of the great toe perhaps because they have found that part more habitually exposed. Sometimes one sleeper is "cupped" by them, while another will not be molested; and this, I may observe, is true also of the mosquitoes.
Any part left naked will be attacked by the "phyllostoma", but they seem to have a preference for the tip of the great toe perhaps because they have found that part more habitually exposed. Sometimes one sleeper is "cupped" by them, while another will not be molested; and this, I may observe, is true also of the mosquitoes.
The red hair covering its body and large membranous wings added to the hideousness of its aspect, and a more hideous creature could not have been conceived. It was the vampire, the blood-sucking phyllostoma! A short cry escaped from the lips of Leon. It was not a cry of pain, but the contrary. The sight of the great bat, hideous as the creature was, relieved him.
These creatures suffer, perhaps, without knowing from what cause, for the phyllostoma performs its cupping operation without causing the least pain at all events the sleeper is very rarely awakened by it.
He had all along been under the painful impression that some venomous serpent had caused the blood to flow, and now he had no further fear on that score. He knew that there was no poison in the wound inflicted by the phyllostoma only the loss of a little blood; and this quieted his anxieties at once.
It is easy to understand how it sucks the blood of its victim, for its snout and the leafy appendage around its mouth from whence it derives the name "phyllostoma" are admirably adapted to that end. But how does it make the puncture to "let" the blood? That is as yet a mystery among naturalists, as it also is among the people who are habitually its victims.
It is easy to understand how it sucks the blood of its victim, for its snout and the leafy appendage around its mouth from whence it derives the name "phyllostoma" are admirably adapted to that end. But how does it make the puncture to "let" the blood? That is as yet a mystery among naturalists, as it also is among the people who are habitually its victims.
Even Guapo could not explain the process. The large teeth of which it has got quite a mouthful seem altogether unfitted to make a hole such as is found where the phyllostoma has been at work. Their bite, moreover, would awake the soundest sleeper. Besides these, it has neither fangs, nor sting, nor proboscis, that would serve the purpose. How then does it reach the blood?
The little grey blood-sucking Phyllostoma, mentioned in a former chapter as found in my chamber at Caripi, was not uncommon at Ega, where everyone believes it to visit sleepers and bleed them in the night. But the vampire was here by far the most abundant of the family of leaf-nosed bats. It is the largest of all the South American species, measuring twenty-eight inches in expanse of wing.
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