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 have already had occasion to mention several of the more interesting birds found in the Ega district.The first thing that would strike a newcomer in the forests of the Upper Amazons would be the general scarcity of birds; indeed, it often happened that I did not meet with a single bird during a whole day's ramble in the richest and most varied parts of the woods.Yet the country is tenanted by many hundred species, many of which are, in reality, abundant, and some of them conspicuous from their brilliant plumage.The cause of their apparent rarity is to be sought in the sameness and density of the thousand miles of forest which constitute their dwelling-place.The birds of the country are gregarious, at least during the season when they are most readily found; but the frugivorous kinds are to be met with only when certain wild fruits are ripe, and to know the exact localities of the trees requires months of experience.It would not be supposed that the insectivorous birds are also gregarious, but they are so-- numbers of distinct species, belonging to many different families, joining together in the chase or search of food.The proceedings of these associated bands of insect-hunters are not a little curious, and merit a few remarks.
While hunting along the narrow pathways that are made through the forest in the neighbourhood of houses and villages, one may pass several days without seeing many birds; but now and then the surrounding bushes and trees appear suddenly to swarm with them.
There are scores, probably hundreds of birds, all moving about with the greatest activity--woodpeckers and Dendrocolaptidae (from species no larger than a sparrow to others the size of a crow) running up the tree trunks; tanagers, ant-thrushes, hummingbirds, fly-catchers, and barbets flitting about the leaves and lower branches.The bustling crowd loses no time, and although moving in concert, each bird is occupied, on its own account, in searching bark or leaf or twig; the barbets visit every clayey nest of termites on the trees which lie in the line of march.In a few minutes the host is gone, and the forest path remains deserted and silent as before.I became, in course of time, so accustomed to this habit of birds in the woods near Ega, that I could generally find the flock of associated marauders whenever I wanted it.There appeared to be only one of these flocks in each small district; and, as it traversed chiefly a limited tract of woods of second growth, I used to try different paths until I came up with it.
