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inspected with a higher power. By giving a slight motion 
to the cover-glass, or producing currents in the fluid, the 
reality of the connection may be demonstrated.—(Communi- 
cated by Mr. Moseley.) 
The Wing of Bats—In Max Schultze’s ‘ Archiv,’ Band 7, 
ltes Heft, is a most exhaustive and interesting paper on the 
structure of the bat’s wing, by Dr. Jos. Schobl, of Prague. 
Long ago Spallanzani discovered that bats which had had 
their eyes put out were able, nevertheless, when allowed to 
fly about in a room, to avoid threads stretched acrossit. This 
faculty he attributed to some highly developed sense of touch 
possessed by the wing. Dr. Schobl has repeated these ex- 
periments; but for the putting out of the eyes he has 
substituted the less painful method of covering them with 
sticking plaster. He has kept bats thus treated for a year 
alive in his room, and has entirely confirmed Spallanzani’s 
results. To account for these phenomena, the wings of bats 
have been examined for peculiar nerve-endings by Cuvier, 
Leydig, and Krause, but without any success. The author’s 
discoveries are therefore quite new to science. The following 
is a short abstract of his results. The bat’s wing membrane 
consists of two sheets of skin, the upper derived from that of 
the back, the lower from that of the belly. The epidermic 
and Malpighian layers in each sheet remain separate, whilst 
the true skins are inseparably fused. In this fused median 
layer are imbedded the muscles, nerves, vessels, &c., of the 
wing. A complicated arrangement of delicate muscles is 
described, which have their tendons formed of elastic tissue 
instead of the usual white fibrous tissue. There are also 
present numerous long elastic bundles stretched in different 
directions in different regions of the wing. The arteries are 
each accompanied by a single vein and a nerve, the three 
keeping company as far as the commencement of the capillary 
system. With regard to the pulsation in the wing, Dr. 
Schobl has nothing new to add to the observations of 
Wharton Jones and Leydig. The whole wing is covered, 
both on the upper and under surface, with extremely fine, 
sparsely scattered hairs. ‘These hairs are most numerous on 
the inner third of the hinder part of the wing, and they 
gradually decrease in number towards the tip. The two 
wings taken together contain from 8000 to 10,000 of them. 
They have a general resemblance to those on the body, but 
are simpler in form. Their length is about 0°2500 mm. in 
Vesperugo serotinus, the species principally made use of in 
these investigations. Each hair sac has from two to seven 
sebaceous glands, according to the species; and one sweat 
