ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA. 



11 



creation, and though having a marked resemblance to a 

 quadruped, a great part of his life is spent in the air like a 

 bird." Instead of being oviparous or egg-laying, this is a 

 lactescent, or milk-giving animal ; instead of living on grain, 

 its food is flesh ; and instead of being like a bird, a biped or 

 two-legged animal, it is a quadruped in the true sense of the 

 term. 



Great ignorance prevailed among the ancients respecting 

 bats. Aristotle describes them as " birds with skinny 

 wings !" Pliny asserts that they are " birds which produce 

 their young alive, and suckle them;" while Aldrovandus, 

 who always has something exquisitely graphic, places them 

 in the same family as the Ostrich, giving as his reason, that 

 " these two species partake equally of the nature of quadru- 

 peds ! !" How, why, or from what similitude, he leaves an 

 open subject. 



The wings of the bat are formed by the extension of a fine 

 membrane over the elongated fingers of the fore-legs, reach- 

 ing as far as, and fastened to, or rather stretched over the 

 hind-legs. As however the four fingers are involved in the 



