Vampire bat

“ Doctor von Niemann
A certain species, yes. There are vampire bats. Doctor William Jameson, who explored many of the tributaries of the upper Amazon, states that bloodsucking bats do exist. He further asserts the victims often become blood drinkers themselves, citing a case in which he saw a native tortured to death on an ant hill by his tribe brothers. They swore he had become a human bat. And, states Jameson, he confessed it.
Karl Brettschneider
Do you mean to say that such a thing as a human vampire is possible? ”

“ At night I would find a tree, and lace a rope in and out of two boughs, so as to form a kind of cradle; thus supported, I slept in peace, excepting that sometimes the vampire bat would annoy me by sucking my blood; he did it though so quietly, that I suffered no pain; and perhaps it was serviceable to me to lose a little blood; it is not improbable that these flying surgeons kept me in health by their gentle bleedings. The vampire bat does not subsist entirely by sucking the blood of living animals; it feeds also on insects and young fruits. ”

“ He became so agitated at one point, I thought I might actually have to restrain him from some violent action. Finally he calmed down a little and I managed to change the subject.
He certainly looked anemic, but I found it hard to believe that he was not exaggerating about the bat.
Contrary to much popular superstition, vampire bats are not immense flapping horrors which rob their victims of quarts of blood in a single night. The vampire bat is a small creature, scarcely two inches long. Its capacity is obviously determined by its own dimensions. ”

“ Although the vampire's capacity is limited, this little light-hating bat makes a circular incision in its slumbering victim's flesh with such precision and stealthy finesse that the sleeper rarely awakens. After the vampire laps up its fill of blood and flies away, blood usually continues to flow from the wound. It is this continuing flow of blood which ordinarily awakens the victim. By the time the victim becomes fully alert, however, he may have lost much more blood than the bat itself has actually absorbed. ”

“ It was a species of bat, named by naturalists the vampire, that I had ejected, and he it was who had bled me so freely in the foot.
It is remarkable that this bloodsucker, when once he has fastened on an animal, is allowed to satiate his appetite unmolested, as its victims all remain quiet and unresisting during the time he makes his meal. It is said that vampires flap their wings and produce a cooling sensation that lulls their prey to sleep while they suck their fill. ”

“ WE were now in the land of the bloodsucking bats, the vampire bats that suck the blood of living creatures, clinging to or hovering against the shoulder of a horse or cow, or the hand or foot of a sleeping man, and making a wound from which the blood continues to flow long after the bat’s thirst has been satiated. ”

“ The only true vampire bat is found in South America, although there is a type of frugivorous bat slightly resembling it, which inhabits the southeast coast of Asia and Maylayan Archipelago, and is sometimes erroneously called a vampire or spectre bat. You have described in detail a creature greatly resembling the true vampire bat, but it is probable that what you saw was no bat at all. What it really was, I hesitate to say until I have examined the substance on this book cover. ”

“ Barney groaned again, and the hermit went on to enumerate the wicked deeds of the vampire bats, while he applied poultices of certain herbs to Martin's toe, in order to check the bleeding, and then bandaged it up; after which he sat down to relate to his visitors the manner in which the bat carries on its bloody operations. He explained, first of all, that the vampire bats are so large and ferocious that they often kill horses and cattle by sucking their blood out. ”

“ However, the vampire bat of the American tropics is a gruesome reality. It is now known to be a carrier of the rabies virus.
It is a small, brown bat condemned by nature to live exclusively on blood. Its throat is too small to swallow solid particles. Its stomach is especially adapted for rapid digestion. It feasts on all sorts of mammals, including man, and the incisions of its razor-sharp teeth are so nearly painless that a sleeper seldom is awakened. Supposedly it always bites man on the bottoms of the toes. ”

“ Empty, isn't there a huge, South American vampire bat which attacks men? Perhaps one of those bats was shipped north in a crate of oranges or bananas, and has escaped and crawled into a hollow tree somewhere on the campus."
Cummings' face was grim. "No, Nancy. The blood-sucking bat of South America has a wing span of scarcely three inches. It couldn't tear a man's throat or suck more than a thimbleful of blood. The big South American bats are fruit-eaters—perfectly harmless." ”

“ The Bat tribe all feed upon insects, especially moths; they rest in the day time head downwards, clinging to rough places by means of the claws of their hind feet, coming out at night to seek their food; their sight, which is very quick, enabling them to see their prey when almost dark. Some of the larger species of this tribe, inhabiting America, are called Vampire Bats, they live by sucking the blood of various animals, such as cattle and horses, thereby inflicting dangerous wounds. ”

“ Now, among the great bat tribe there are most likely several kinds who really do what the stories tell of the Vampires. Indeed, there is one species of big bat, with wings two feet wide, and a horny, prickly tongue, which is known to people who study natural history as the Spectre Vampire. Poor bat, it suffers, as is not uncommon, for the faults of others, for in reality it cares nothing for human blood and has never sucked anybody. ”

“ Colin Camber, the American authority, offered some very curious particulars in support of a theory to show that whereas snakes and scorpions have always been recognized as sacred by Voodoo worshippers, the real emblem of their unclean religion is the bat, especially the Vampire Bat of South America.
“He pointed out that the symptoms of one dying beneath the spell of an Obeah man are closely paralleled in the cases of men and animals who have suffered from nocturnal attacks of blood-sucking bats.” ”

“ Apart from the spectre vampire there is, of course, the vampire bat in the world of natural history, which is said to suck blood from a sleeping person, insinuating its tongue into a vein, but without inflicting pain. ”

“ I distinctly recollect a story which I once heard, of a little girl in some district of tropical America falling into such a decline, from which she was only rescued in the nick of time by the discovery that one of these Vampire Bats, a particularly large one, had formed the habit of flying into her room at night and attaching itself to her bare arm which lay outside the coverlet. ”

“ At Government House, Port-of-Spain, there is a very lofty entrance-hall, bright with electric light. The vampires constantly flew in here, to become helpless at once in the glare of light, when they could be easily killed with a stick. The vampire is a small, sooty-black bat with a perfectly diabolical little face. An ordinary mosquito net is quite sufficient protection against them, or, to persons who do not mind a light in their room, a lamp burning all night is an absolute safeguard against their attacks. ”

“ Karl Brettschneider
Well, all the records in the world can't make me believe in vampires. There are bloodsucking bats, yes—in South America, thousands of miles from here, but not in Kleinschloss.
Weingarten
But bats fly. They could fly here.
Bürgermeister Gustave Schoen
You saw the bodies, all of them—two wounds on the neck right at the jugular vein; two wounds on the neck pierced and spread apart just as if two fang-like teeth had bitten through the flesh and right into the veins ”

“ Who doubts that a mosquito will perch itself upon the skin of a human being, pierce it with its proboscis, and suck away until it is gorged with blood! Why does it appear strange that a bat should do the same?
Now your closet-naturalist will believe that the bat does suck the blood of cattle and horses, but denies that it will attack man! This is sheer nonsense. What difference to the vampire, whether its victim be a biped or quadruped? ”

“ The repulsive bat that clings to the window ledge in Bram Stoker’s novel is a vampire, a symbol of the whole horrible situation, as the kite that soars menacingly overhead in another of his novels is individualized and becomes a definite thing of terror. ”

“ It is true, these insects disappear at night, but only to give place to others yet more formidable. Large vampire bats literally throng the forests, cling to the hammocks, and, finding, a part of the body exposed, rest lightly there and drain it of blood. ”

“ Waterton describes the mode in which the vampire-bat makes the orifice through which to suck its victim’s blood. It does so by pressing gently the point of its sharp projecting teeth, noiselessly circling round, and making them act the part of a centre-bit,—performing the operation so quietly that no pain is felt. He says, however, that at times they commit a good deal of mischief. A young Indian boy suffered greatly by being frequently attacked ”

“ Indeed, “bat-hunting” is followed by some as a profession, so eager are the owners of the cattle-farms to get rid of these pests.
Many tribes of Indians and travellers suffer great annoyance from the vampire-bats. Some persons never go to sleep without covering themselves with blankets, although the heat be ever so oppressive. 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. ”

“ I set him free, deeming anything so ugly well worthy of life, if such could find sustenance among his fellows and win a mate for himself somewhere in this world. But he, for all his hideousness and unseemly mien, is not the vampire; the blood-sucking bat has won a mantle of deceit from the hands of Nature—a garb that gives him a modest and not unpleasing appearance, and makes it a difficult matter to distinguish him from his guileless confrères of our summer evenings. ”

“ Kringen
I've walked the streets of this village for over 40 years, but tonight's the end. He knows that I've told he plays with bats. He knows that I saw him sneak into Martha's house just before midnight.
Doctor von Niemann
Perhaps he was taking her another flower, Kringen. The boy brought her one this evening while I was there.
Kringen
He killed her just like he did all the rest! And now he's going to kill me! Unless he's killed with a stake driven through his heart, I'm a doomed man! He'll kill me! He'll kill me! I'm doomed! He'll kill me! He'll kill me! I'm a doomed man! He'll kill me! ”

“ On waking from sleep the astonished traveller finds his hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked him. Not man alone, but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his depredations; and so gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw the blood that, instead of being roused, the patient is lulled into a still profounder sleep. There are two species of vampire in Demerara, and both suck living animals: one is rather larger than the common bat, the other measures above two feet from wing to wing extended. ”

“ Most bats feed on insects which they catch on the wing; some of them eat fruit; and a few enjoy a bad name because they suck the blood of other animals. Of these last are the so-called vampire bats, respecting which it used to be said that they fanned their victim with their wings while they sucked its life's blood. Though it is quite true that horses and cattle in South America are attacked by some bats, this hideous tale is altogether fabulous. ”

“ An insect would not strike all its victims in the same spot, and bite only once. Then in an awed voice, I hoarsely whispered that I had heard that hordes of vampire bats were invading China. They came in the night's blackness, fastened themselves to the body of the victims until they had taken their full of blood. ”

“ Vampire, vam′pīr, n. in eastern Europe, an accursed body which cannot rest in the kindly earth, but nightly leaves its grave to suck the blood of sleeping men: an extortioner.—n. Vam′pire-bat, the name of several species of bats all supposed to suck blood—the real blood-suckers only in Central and South America, attacking cattle, horses, and sometimes human beings asleep.—adj. ”

“ On the contrary, it induces deeper sleep. But I have not yet come to my point, Knox. The vengeance of the High Priest of Voodoo, who figured in the Colonel’s narrative, was characteristic in the case of the native woman, since her symptoms at least simulated those which would result from the visits of a Vampire Bat, although of course they may have been due to a slow poison. ”

“ They are essentially mammalia, inasmuch as they produce their young in a breathing state and suckle them. The bats of England and other cold climates remain in a torpid condition, and only spread their wings of stretched skin when the songbirds report the advent of the warmth of spring. The visitor will notice amongst the varieties in the three first cases, the Brazilian bats, including the vampire bat (which has been known to attack a man in his sleep and suck blood from him) , the remarkable leaf-nosed bats which are ranged upon the upper shelves, and the Indian and African varieties ”

“ As the Indian servants stretched themselves out in slumber under the bright stars and in the partial shelter of their ajoupas, a bat of the vampire species, attracted by the emanations of their bodies, came sailing over them, and emboldened by the silence reigning everywhere, selected a victim for attack. Hovering over the fellow's exposed foot, he bit the great toe, and fanning his prey in the traditional yet inevitable manner by the natural movement of his wings, he gorged himself with blood without disturbing the mozo. ”