"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? Many theories have been offered; some
assert that it rubs the skin with its snout until it brings it to
bleeding: others say that it sets the sharp point of one of its large
tusks against the part, and then by plying its wings wheels round and
round, as upon a pivot, until the point has penetrated--that during this
operation the motion of the wings fans and cools the sleeping victim, so
that no pain is felt. It may be a long while before this curious
question is solved, on account of the difficulty of observing a creature
whose habits are nocturnal, and most of whose deeds are "done in the
dark."

People have denied the existence of such a creature as the blood-sucking
bat--even naturalists have gone so far. They can allege no better
grounds for their incredulity than that the thing has an air of the
fabulous and horrible about it. But this is not philosophy.
Incredulity is the characteristic of the half-educated. It may be
carried too far, and the fables of the vulgar have often a stratum of
truth at the bottom. There is one thing that is almost intolerable, and
that is the conceit of the "closet-naturalist," who sneers at everything
as untrue that seems to show the least _design_ on the part of the brute
creation--who denies everything that appears at all singular or
fanciful, and simply because it appears so. With the truthful
observations that have been made upon the curious domestic economy of
such little creatures as bees, and wasps, and ants, we ought to be
cautious how we reject statements about the habits of other animals,
however strange they may appear.

Who doubts that a mosquito will perch itself upon the skin of a human
being, pierce it with his 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