. ON BATS. ^ \yj 



in the discerning of objects against "which they njjght stcil^e, 



surely they must be equally us< less in discovering the 



smaller winged insect*, on which they prey in the dusk of 



the evening. t 



Can we, however, meditate on the wonderfully rapid P,llt tlus 1S 



* J r improbable^ 



turns and evolutions of these creatures in pursuit of their 



prey, au*l not allow them the powers of sight to eli'ect 

 the first principle of life, a power not denied to any known 

 animal possessed of a red circulating fluid by the arterial 

 system ? To assent to the conclusion which Mr. de Jurine 

 has drawn from his experiments, that the ears of bats are 

 more essential to their discovering objects than their eyes, 

 requires more faith, and less philosophic reasoning, than 

 can be expected of the zootomical philosopher, by whom it 

 might fairly be asked, Since bats see with their ears, do 

 they hear with their eyes ? It will not be sufficient for these 

 experimentalists to inform us, that the copious auricles of 

 this class of animals, or their delicate internal structure, 

 are adequate to the double purpose of seeing and hearing,* 

 when we perceive, that they are by nature provided with 

 organs of sight similar to what we not only feel most sen- 

 sibly to be the most inestimable of blessings, but also per- 

 ceive to be tj^ie principal fountains of locomotion in all othir 

 animals in the same scale of beings. 



Although it cannot be admitted, that the Almighty hand Its directing : 

 gave to, these creatures those most wonderfully constructed darknessfun- 

 organs of sight, Avithout endowing them with visual pro- accountable, 

 perties, yet it must he allowed, that there is something ex- 

 tremely astonishing and unaccountable in their unembar- 

 rassed flight in total darkness, whether by sealing up their 

 eyes, or by their natural habits of finding their way through 

 all the smaller passages and windings into the inmost re- 

 cesses of their subterraneous abode. By what occult property but no more 



they direct their course in total darkness, is perhaps a pro- * lian . other 

 J r 1 l facts in natu- 



blem of as difficult solution as that of a swallow returning ral history, 

 from the torrid to the frigid zone, to breed in the same 

 nest it had prepared the preceding year, and in which it 

 liad performed those functions of nature. Can any human 

 understanding develop the cause, that so unerringly directs 

 the carrier-pigeon to its place of nativity, when previously 

 Vol, XXIII.— .June, I8O9. I taken 



