UNUSUAL EXPERIENCE

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 23 May 1922, Page 6

UNUSUAL EXPERIENCE

A NIGHT ATTACK BY VAMPIRES. The following extraordinary account of what it feels like to be attacked by the great vampire bat that has its habitat in the jungle of New Guinea is told by Mr William Beebe, the wellknown scientific observer and traveller, in his new book, “The Edge of the Jungle,” just published by Messrs H. F. and G. Witherby. It is one of the many jungle cameos in a fascinating book on the tropics. In the evening great bats as large as small herons swept down the long front gallery where we worked, gleaning as they went, but the vampires were long in coming, and’ for months we neither saw nor heard of one. Then they attacked our servants, and we took heart, and, night after night, exposed our toes, as conveniently-ac-cepted vampire-bait. When at last they found that the color of our skins was no criterion of dilution of blood they came in crowds. For three nights they swept about us with hardly a whisper of wings, and accepted either toe, elbow or finger, or all three, and the cote and floor in the morning looked like an emergency hospital behind an active front. In spite of every attempt at keeping awake, we dropped off to sleep before the bats had begun, and did not waken until they left. . . .

One night I made a special effort, and, with bared arm, prepared for a long vigil. In a few minutes bats began to fan my face, the wings almost brushing, but never quite touching my skin. I could distinguish the difference between the smaller and the larger, the latter having a deeper swish, dteeper and longer drawn-out. Their voices were so high and shrill that the singing of the jungle crickets seemed almost contralto in comparison.

Ffaally, I began to feed myself the focus of one or' more of these winged weasels. The swishes became more frequent, the returnings almost doubling on their track.

Now and then a small body touched the sheet for an instant, and then, with a soft little tap, a vampire alighted on my chest.

I was half sitting up, yet I could not see him, for I had found that the least hint of light ended any possibility of ai visit. I breathed a® quietly as I could, and madiei sure that both hands were clear.

For a long time there was no movement, and the renewed swishes made me suspect that the bat had again taken flight. Not until. I felt. a. tickling on my wrist did I know that my visitor had shifted!, and, unerringly, was making for the arm. I had exposed. Slowly it crept forward, but I hardly folt the. pushing of the feet and pulling of the thumbs as it crawled along. If I had been asleep,. I should not have awakened. It continued up my forearm, and came to rest at my elbow. Here l another Ibing period of rest, and then several short, quick shifts of body.

With my whole- attention concentrated on my elbow, I began to imagine various sensatians as my mind pictured the long, lancet tooth ■.-. inking deep into the ekin, and the Mood pumping up. I even began to feel the hot rush of my vital fluid over my arm, and then found that I had dozed for a moment, and that all my sensations were imaginary. But soon a gentle tickling be’came apparent, and, in spite of putting this out of my mind, and with increasing doubts as to the bat being still there, the tickling continued. It changed to a tingling, rather pleasant than otherwise, like the first stage, of having one’s hand asleep.

It really seemed as if this were the critical moment.

Somehow or other the vampire was at work with no pain or even inconvenience to me, and now was the moment to seize him, call for a lantern, and solve Mus super-surgical skill, the exact method of this vespertilial anaesthetist".

Slowly, very slowly, I lifted the other hand, always thinking of my elbow, so that I might keep all the muscles relaxed. Very slowly it approached, and, with as swift a motion as I could achieve, I grasped at the vampire. I felt a touch of fur, and I gripped a struggling, skinny wing; there came a single-nip of teeth, and the wing-tip slipped through my fingers. I could detect no trace of blood by feeling, so turned over and' went to sleep. In the morning I found a tiny scratch, with the skin barely broken, and, heartily disappointed, I realised that my tickling and tingling had been the preliminary symptoms of the operation.