WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



Some persons call them ' leathery-bats,' 

 others ' flitter-mice,' but neither name is a good 

 one, for they are not mice, nor are their wings 

 at all leathery. The wing of a bat is really a 

 very wonderful thing. It is a hand with long 

 fingers, between which the skin has been drawn 

 out so as to make the membrane of the wing. 

 If you spread out your hand, and imagine the 

 four fingers pulled out and grown until very 

 very long, while the thumb remains short and 

 stumpy, and that the skin between the fingers 

 has also grown and been stretched until it 

 extends not only from tip to tip of the fingers 

 but along the side of the body to the hind foot, 

 you will understand how a bat's wing has be- 

 come what it is. It is simply a much changed 

 and developed hand, the bones of this hand 

 acting like the ribs of an umbrella and serving 

 to keep the skin stretched and taut when the 

 owner is in flight. When the bat alights it 

 folds up its hands, the skin falls into wrinkly 

 folds, and, using the thumb joint as a fore foot, 

 it is able to run about almost as quickly as a 

 mouse. The skin of the wings extends along 

 the side of the body, is attached to the hind leg, 

 and then joins the tail, thus making a rudder 

 with which the bat steers itself when flying; 



2 



