The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-07-23
VAMPIRES FALSE AND TRUE
Genuine BIoodsucker Is Little Animal
Three Inches Long.

Genuine BIoodsucker Is Little Animal
Three Inches Long.
The queer thing about vampires Is
that the original ones never existed
at all, and that the creatures now
called vampires only have their name
by virtue OF transference from the
fabulous original. This original was
first conceived of. apparently, among
the Slavonic peoples of Eastern
Europe, among whom there arose a
legend of terminated corpses, who
secured a second time on earth" by
nightly sucking the blood of the liv-
ing. This kind of vampire, however,
was pretty easily suppressed. All
you had to do was to trace it to its
tomb, and then, by sticking stake
through its chest, cutting off its head.
or some other equally simple and
drastic treatment, put an end to its
phlebotomising performances.
When, however. Europeans began
70 colonize the warmer parts OF
America they were not long in find
ing out that there were bats there
which pretty faithfully carried cut
the program of the vampires of
European legend, with the added dis
advantage that they were uncommon
ly hard to bring to book. For one
thing. it proved to be a matter of the
greatest difficulty to get hold of the
right bat. Centuries went on; bats
bit people and the sufferers bled and
could not retaliate on the real often
der, though, no doubt, hectacombs Of
innocent bats fell victims to venge-
full humanity.
The greatest muddle was made by
the father of modern scientific
zoology. Linnaeus, who had way
of mixing up accounts of the sensa-
tional animals of both hemispheres,
descriptions in those days being
rather indefinite, specimens had to
come by, and ideas of the geographic
distribution Of animals indefinite.
Accordingly we find in his immoral
System of Nature" vespertillo vam-
pyrus located in Asia, where, ac-
cording to his admirably terse &C
count, "by night it sucks the blood
of sleepers, the combs of cocks and
the sap of palms." This beast was
however, one of the great fruit-eating
bats, or flying foxes" of the Eastern
tropics, very probably the Kalong
(Pteropus Edulls) of the East Indies.
the biggest bat known. As matter
of fact, all these big fox-like bats
are vegetarians mainly or entirely.
When modern scientific explorers
started working out the animal life
of tropical America they found all
the old stories Of bloodsucking bats
confirmed, and sometimes had per-
sonal experience, but still they failed
to bring the evil beasts to the bar Of
scientific justice. Waterton thought
the creature was the fiat.nosed bat
(Artibeus planirostris). which is a
fruit eater. He never got bitten
himself, presumably, as was suggest
ed. because he always bled himself
for every ailment and the vampire
had too much sense to waste time
On him. Then Bates in his charming
book. "The Naturalist on the Anna
xons." describes how bats filed his
bedroom and shared his bed. He
caught some crawling over him. land
dashed them against the wall" I
can quite imagine that But the
specimens thus secured were not the
right bats.
Before Bates time, however, al
though that naturalist seems to have
been unaware of it, Darwin, who, I'M
like most of his followers, was as
great at observation as at theorl, had
run the real offender to earth at Co
Quimbo. in Chill. by stroke Of luck.
A servant OF his caught bat in the
very act of bleeding horse, and SO
settled the guilt once and for all on
Desmodus rufus. This true vampire
bat turned out to be a quite insig
nificant creature, not unlike our
Noctule Bat in general appearance
and size, but with small "nosleaf"
and no web between the hind legs.
The really remarkable thing about 1t
is its perfect adaptation for secret
and painless blood letting. Most bats
have teeth very like those OF the
carnivora, with long CANNES and
small incisors. but in the true blood.
sucking vampires the incisors are
very large and broad and exceedingly
sharp-edged, thus able to infict a
shaving surface cut which causes no
pain. but great deal of bloodletting.
Indeed, not only does the sleeper
very rarely wake under the winged
bloodletter's attentions, but bite
may be inflicted, unfelt. on person
who Is awake at the time.