22 M. de Blainville on the Classification and 



Cheiroptera, or the animals of the Bat family, on the surface of the 

 earth, premising preliminary observations on the scientific history 

 of the subject, the principles of their classification, and their pre- 

 sent geographical distribution. This memoir is extracted from 

 a work the author means speedily to publish under the title of 

 *' A System of the Animal Kingdom, founded upon the whole 

 organization, and its functions, as inferred from the external 

 characters." Each great genus of the Linnean system will thus 

 be brought under review, and the fossil species, as well as the 

 existing ones, will be considered. We shall now present an 

 epitome of this essay, whence it will appear, how, in the pro- 

 jected work, M. de Blainville proposes to investigate every 

 group of the animal series. 



The Bat is denominated by the Greeks Nuxrsgog, and by the 

 Latins Vespertilio ; and both of these appellations designate it 

 better than that of Avis-Sorex (flying mouse), of Oiseau 

 Musaraigne, of Souris-Chauve (bald mouse), or, finally, of 

 Chatite^Souris^ now the general French name. According to 

 M. de Blainville, this unfortunate denomination, which gives to 

 the bat a kmd of equivocal nature, is to be considered as the 

 cause why naturalists have not assigned to these animals their 

 proper place, according to their natural relations ; and hence he 

 prefixes the scientific history of these animals. He then points 

 out the arrangement in which he proposes to place them, both 

 as it regards their genera and species. We shall allow him, 

 in his own words, to explain the principles which have regu- 

 lated him. 



As by a natural methodical arrangement is understood some- 

 thing stable, which reposes on the existence of an animal series, 

 and in which, therefore, there is nothing arbitrary, it is clear 

 that the zoologist only attains this object when the first species 

 of a group is that which most nearly approaches the last of the 

 preceding group, and when the last is that which is the least re- 

 moved from the first of the succeeding one. It likewise follows, 

 that when these two points are determined, the intermediate ar- 

 rangements follow as a matter of course. Now, what essentially 

 constitutes a bat, or rather the group of the Cheiroptera, the 

 first order of the carnivora, is, that they fly more or less, that 

 they may procure, and often that they may pursue their prey, 



