The tongue of the vampyre I have not had an opportunity of observing, but those of several Ternat bats which M. Daubenton attentively examined, seemed to indicate the possibility of the fact; their tongues were sharp, and full of prickles directed backward; and it appears that these prickles, or points, from their exceeding minuteness, may be insinuated into the pores of the skin, and may penetrate them so deep as to command a flow of the blood, by the continued function of the tongue. But it is needless to reason upon a fact of which all the circumstances are imperfectly known to us, and of which some are perhaps exaggerated, or erroneously related. SUPPLEMENT. Among other remarks which I received from the ingenious M. de la Nux upon this work, after its first publication, were the following respecting these animals. He says, in general terms, that the size and number of the Great Ternat Bats are both exaggerated; that instead of attacking men they invariably endeavour to get from them, consequently never bite but when taken, or defending themselves, which they do then most dreadfully; and that instead of being ferocious animals, they are perfectly gentle in their dispositions. Speaking from his own experience, he says, both the great and small Ternat bats are natives of Bourbon, the isles of France, and Madagascar, in the former of which he had resided upwards of fifty years; when he first arrived there they were very numerous in many places where at present they are not to be found, and for these reasons, that the forests were then adjacent to them, which had been cleared away by the settlements, and that it is only in forests they can subsist; besides, they bring forth but once a year, and are hunted, both by whites and negroes, for the sake of their flesh and grease. The females are in season about the month of May, and produce towards the end of September. They appear to come to maturity in about eight months, since there are no small ones to be seen after April or May, and the young are to be known from the old by their colours being more vivid: they become grey with age, but it is uncertain at what period; at this time their flesh is very disagreeable, and their fat alone, of which they have plenty during the summer, is eaten by the negroes. They never feed upon any kind of flesh, but entirely on bananas, peaches, and other fruits and flowers with which these forests abound: they are exceedingly fond of the juices of certain umbellated flowers; and it is possibly for the purpose of sucking the different species of them that they have such a number of sharp papillæ on their tongues. They never touch the skins of the mango, perhaps because it is resinous. Some of them which have been caught, and kept alive, have been known to eat bread and sugar-canes, but I believe, even in that state, no kind of meat, either raw or prepared. There cannot be any thing to apprehend from