Clifton College Scientific Society. 15 



MEETING, Feb. 4, 1870. 



The President congratulated the Society upon the addition 

 to its ranks of Mr. Barrington Ward, and proposed that he 

 should be elected a second secretary. The proposition was 

 unanimously carried. Mr. E. O. Ashby read a paper on the 

 ' Induction Coil,' illustrating it with various experiments. 



Ordinary members elected : — 



EoBiNSON. Anderson. 



Present, 17 members and 38 visitors. 



MEETING, March 10, 1870. 



In the absence of the President, Dr. Debus, Mr. Bai-rington 

 Ward took the chair. 



Ordinary member elected : — 



W. Efgoks. 

 Honorary members elected : — 



Eev. H. J. Wiseman. F. H. Talbot, Esq. 



Present, 29 members and visitors. 

 T. H. Warren read the following paper : — 



ON BATS. 

 Perhaps no order in the animal kingdom has given 

 naturalists more trouble than that of the bats, or, as they are 

 scientificaUy termed, the Cheiroptera. The popular idea is 

 that they are a sort of combination of the quadruped and 

 the bird ; and, from their resemblance to a winged mouse 

 they are sometimes called flittermice. There was, indeed a 

 system once current among naturalists which placed the bat 

 and the ostrich in the same order, because the bat could fly 

 while the ostrich could not. Even after their true mam- 

 mahan character had become better recognised, they were 

 placed at the end of the mammals, and considered as a link 

 between them and the birds. Though few, however would 

 now thmk that a bat is a bird, we must allow, at least, that 

 the bat discharges by night that office which is filled by the 

 swallow during the day. Indeed, we can show that in every 

 great division of animals there are individual forms endowed 

 with characters which, to a casual observer, might appear to 



