Note 141 — Chapter IX
William Johnston translation
It is rather singular that the author should class bats among the birds merely because they can fly, when they are mammalia. Those here mentioned are probably the same as Buffon’s Roussette (Vespertilio vampyrus, or, according to Blumenbach, V. caninus.) They live entirely on fruits, and are not blood-thirsty, as we might be induced to believe from Gmelin’s assertion in Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. xiii. In this respect they are confounded with the real Vampyre of Surinam (Vesp. Spectrum). This Vampyre exhales a very disagreeable smell, and is not eatable; but the former may be eaten, and are used as food by the natives of New Holland. They are accustomed to suspend themselves in the day time by the large hooks of their wings from the Casuarina trees. I brought down six of them at one shot in the island of Amsterdam (Tonga-Tabu), and several more remained dead on the tree; for there was an immense multitude of them together. F.