14 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



which Huber more particularly remarked in the queen- 

 bee, when she left the hive for the purpose of pairing. 

 Carrier pigeons, we have also remarked, employ the 

 same circular mode of flight, both in departing from 

 an unknown station and in arriving at their home 

 from a distance. 



These facts are strikingly illustrated by the extra- 

 ordinary delicacy of touch possessed by bats, which 

 made Spallanzani conceive that they had a peculiar 

 sense distinct from any found in other animals ; 

 and, to satisfy himself upon this point, he performed 

 many cruel experiments. He found that bats, when 

 blindfolded, and even when their eyes are destroyed 

 altogether and leather glued over the sockets, can 

 fly nearly as well as betbre, and can avoid in their 

 flight the smallest threads and other objects hung 

 up to interrupt them. They can even dart through a 

 hole in a net or curtain, large enough only to admit 

 their passage, and that without previous examination. 

 They can likewise thread the mazes of a cavern, 

 without hurting themselves on the walls, and go 

 directly to their nest-holes. When Spallanzani de- 

 stroyed the ears and nostrils, as well as the eyes, of 

 bats, he found that they could direct their flight 

 equally well. 



The correctness of these statements was verified 

 by Professor Jurine, of Geneva, and by Sir A. Carlisle, 

 who repeated the experiments ; but it was Cuvier, if 

 we mistake not, who first gave a plausible explanation 

 of them. He considers the wing of the bat analogous 

 to the hand, with the fingers very much elongated, 

 and united by membrane ; and as it is not only of 

 great extent, compared with the body, but is one 

 continued tissue of exquisitely sensible nerves, co- 

 vered with a fine skin, furrowed like that on the 

 human fingers, the delicacy of its touch is by no 

 means marvellous. If this be correct, the blinded 



