The Naturalist on the River Amazons [215]
of impish hosts of vampire bats crowding round the Caju trees, a rustle commenced from the side of the woods, and a troop of slender, long-tailed animals were seen against the clear moonlit sky, taking flying leaps from branch to branch through the grove. Many of them stopped at the pupunha trees, and the hustling, twittering, and screaming, with sounds of falling fruits, showed how they were employed. I thought, at first, they were Nyctipitheci, but they proved to be Jupuras, for the owner of the house early next morning caught a young one, and gave it to me. I kept this as a pet animal for several weeks, feeding it on bananas and mandioca-meal mixed with treacle. It became tame in a very short time, allowing itself to be caressed, but making a distinction in the degree of confidence it showed between myself and strangers. My pet was unfortunately killed by a neighbour's dog, which entered the room where it was kept. The animal is so difficult to obtain alive, its place of retreat in the daytime not being known to the natives, that I was unable to procure a second living specimen.
Bats--The only other mammals that I shall mention are the bats, which exist in very considerable numbers and variety in the forest, as well as in the buildings of the villages. Many small and curious species, living in the woods, conceal themselves by day under the broad leaf-blades of Heliconiae and other plants which grow in shady places; others cling to the trunks of trees. While walking through the forest in the daytime, especially along gloomy ravines, one is almost sure to startle bats from their sleeping-places; and at night they are often seen in great numbers flitting about the trees on the shady margins of narrow channels. I captured altogether, without giving especial attention to bats, sixteen different species at Ega.
The Vampire Bat.--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. Nothing in animal physiognomy can be more hideous than the countenance of this creature when viewed from the front; the large, leathery ears standing out from the sides and top of the head, the erect spear-shaped appendage on the tip of the nose, the grin and the glistening black eye, all combining to make up a figure that reminds one of some mocking imp of fable. No wonder that imaginative people have inferred diabolical instincts on the part of so ugly an animal. The vampire, however, is the most harmless of all bats, and its inoffensive character is well known to residents on the banks of the Amazons. I found two distinct species of it, one having the fur of a blackish colour, the other of a ruddy hue, and ascertained that both feed chiefly on fruits. The church at Ega was the headquarters of both kinds, I used to see them, as I sat at my door during the short evening twilights, trooping forth by scores from a large open window at the back of the altar, twittering cheerfully as they sped off to the borders of the forest. They sometimes enter houses; the first time I saw one in my chamber, wheeling heavily round and round, I mistook it for a pigeon, thinking that a tame one had escaped from the premises of one of my neighbours. I opened the stomachs of several of these bats, and found them to contain a mass of pulp and seeds of fruits, mingled with a few remains of insects. The natives say they devour ripe cajus and guavas on trees in the gardens, but on comparing the seeds taken from their stomachs with those of all cultivated trees at Ega, I found they were unlike any of them; it is therefore, probable that they generally resort to the forest to feed, coming to the village in the morning to sleep, because they find it more secure from animals of prey than their natural abides in the woods.
Birds.--I
Bats--The only other mammals that I shall mention are the bats, which exist in very considerable numbers and variety in the forest, as well as in the buildings of the villages. Many small and curious species, living in the woods, conceal themselves by day under the broad leaf-blades of Heliconiae and other plants which grow in shady places; others cling to the trunks of trees. While walking through the forest in the daytime, especially along gloomy ravines, one is almost sure to startle bats from their sleeping-places; and at night they are often seen in great numbers flitting about the trees on the shady margins of narrow channels. I captured altogether, without giving especial attention to bats, sixteen different species at Ega.
The Vampire Bat.--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. Nothing in animal physiognomy can be more hideous than the countenance of this creature when viewed from the front; the large, leathery ears standing out from the sides and top of the head, the erect spear-shaped appendage on the tip of the nose, the grin and the glistening black eye, all combining to make up a figure that reminds one of some mocking imp of fable. No wonder that imaginative people have inferred diabolical instincts on the part of so ugly an animal. The vampire, however, is the most harmless of all bats, and its inoffensive character is well known to residents on the banks of the Amazons. I found two distinct species of it, one having the fur of a blackish colour, the other of a ruddy hue, and ascertained that both feed chiefly on fruits. The church at Ega was the headquarters of both kinds, I used to see them, as I sat at my door during the short evening twilights, trooping forth by scores from a large open window at the back of the altar, twittering cheerfully as they sped off to the borders of the forest. They sometimes enter houses; the first time I saw one in my chamber, wheeling heavily round and round, I mistook it for a pigeon, thinking that a tame one had escaped from the premises of one of my neighbours. I opened the stomachs of several of these bats, and found them to contain a mass of pulp and seeds of fruits, mingled with a few remains of insects. The natives say they devour ripe cajus and guavas on trees in the gardens, but on comparing the seeds taken from their stomachs with those of all cultivated trees at Ega, I found they were unlike any of them; it is therefore, probable that they generally resort to the forest to feed, coming to the village in the morning to sleep, because they find it more secure from animals of prey than their natural abides in the woods.
Birds.--I