1813.] Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. SOS 



Article XIII. 



Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. 



IMPERIAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 



Account of the Labours of the French Institute for 1812. 



(Continued from p. 76.) 

 ZOOLOGY, ANATOMY, AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



M. le Chevalier Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, who has examined at 

 various intervals the numerous family of bats, and has made us 

 acquainted with so many interesting species, proposes to give a 

 general table of them. He has prefaced this undertaking with 

 a dissertation on the rank which these singular animals "ouo-ht 

 to hold among the mammalia. They were long considered' as 

 intermediate between quadrupeds and birds. It is equally ob- 

 vious that they hold an intermediate place between the quad- 

 rumania and carnivorous animals. Among the numerous ar- 

 rangements proposed by naturalists, there are some, as that of 

 Linnasus in his last editions, and that of Brisson, in which the 

 bats are classed along with the quadrumania ; in others, as that 

 of Linnaeus in his first editions, and that of Klein, they are 

 placed with the small carnivorous animals, or eaters of insects 

 as the mole and the hedgehog. Some, as Storr and Cuvier' 

 place them at the head of carnivorous animals, before the insect 

 eaters just mentioned, and immediately after the quadrumania - 

 with tins difference, however, that Cuvier distinguishes them 

 more particularly, and makes a subdivision of them. Others 

 as Ray, Blumenbach, Lacepede, and Iliger, constitute them a 

 separate order; and this order is placed by Ray and by Lacepede 

 in some measure out of the arrangement. By Blumenbach be- 

 tween the quadrumania and the other inguicula, at the head 

 oi which this naturalist places the rongeurs. Finally, M Ih'o-er 

 places them before the carnivorous animals, at the head of winch 

 are placed, as in the arrangement of Cuvier, the devourers of 

 insects. 



It is easy to see that all these combinations will depend upon 

 those organs to which each naturalist has paid the greatest at- 

 tention. Those who have chiefly attended to the skeleton, to 

 the intestine^ to the organization of the feet, (o the form of th- 

 nails, to the grinders, have considered the bats as analo-rous to 

 carnivorous animals (and this is the opinion at present most 

 WIOW*l)j While those who have attended only to the fore- 

 teeth, to the position of the mammae, to the hangingpenjs, have 

 considered them x> analogous to the quadrumania. 



