820 



B A U E R A. 



country have been discovered ; but as the habils of 

 the animals is not migrant, all that are observed in 

 any country may be considered as natives. 



From this list of the genera, short as it is, and 

 incomplete as not containing- the numerous ones 

 which have no history, it will readily be seen that the 

 natural history of the bat family is no short or easy 

 matter. Their vast number and variety, their being 

 most abundant in those places where all natural action 

 is the most energetic, and their being fitted for living 

 on so many different kinds of food, show that the part 

 which they perform in the economy of wild nature, 

 must be an important one. It is true that they are 

 preyers, as all animals are, whatever may be the kind 

 of their food. But, in the economy of nature, preying 

 is not destruction but preservation ; and, in the animal 

 kingdom, strange as it may seem at first sight, pre- 

 dation tends quite as much to preserve the races 

 which are preyed upon, as those which are the preyers. 

 Life is, in all its forms, too energetic for the means of 

 life ; because the one is an energy a principle, not 

 in its nature trammelled in by material bounds ; the 

 other is regulated by the quantity of matter which 

 can exist in a particular form. It is this excess of 

 productive power which keeps the system going ; for 

 if there were no more of each kind produced than 

 were necessary for the continuation of that kind, all 

 means of nourishment would be at an end, and the 

 whole would speedily perish. But the caterpillar eats 

 the superabundant leaf ; the little songster eats the 

 caterpillar ; the omnivorous bird destroys in part the 

 eggs of the songster ; the omnivorous bird falls a prey 

 to the rapacious bird. So in the mammalia, one eats 

 the grass, a second the grass eater, and the series 

 goes on, both in the animal and the vegetable king- 

 dom, till fungi feed upon the ruins of the oak, and the 

 larvae of insects fatten upon the carcass of the lion. 

 And if, by any contingency, the race to which it is 

 given to regulate the numbers of another race or of 

 other races should fail, nature still has its resource, so 

 that those which have gotten the mastery, shall not 

 keep it, to the destruction of others and ultimately of 

 themselves ; epizooty comes, as " the pestilence which 

 walketh in darkness," and cuts off, one sees not how, 

 those numbers which have increased beyond that 

 wholesome balance which is the best for all. This is 

 the beauty of the system of nature, that which 

 elevates it far above what we could conceive or 

 imagine, if we did not derive our knowledge from the 

 direct contemplation of the system itself. As there 



is implanted in every individual a means of repair 

 and renovation, which works without foreign assistance 

 during the average period which it is required that 

 the individual should last ; as there is implanted in 

 every species a means of continuation, to which all 

 the other propensities of that species must yield ; so 

 there is implanted in the whole a means of general 

 preservation, by which one race is made to support 

 and preserve another, and which, while it is plastic or 

 obedient to those physical changes, to which the 

 whole must ultimately be subservient, yet so acts 

 upon the whole, that, under all the vicissitudes of 

 place and of time, there is at all times, and in all places, 

 the maximum of beauty and natural usefulness. Not 

 only so, but the whole is given to man as a volume of 

 instruction, which he cannot read with understanding 

 without the full profit to himself from the reading. 

 Go to what place of the globe he may, if he will but 

 study the working of nature there, in the proper 

 manner and without bias brought from other places 

 which are different, he cannot fail in finding the means 

 of turning all the capabilities of that place to his 

 advantage, in the easiest manner, and with the greatest 

 certainty of success. 



All the productions of nature, animate and inanimate, 

 are indices to this knowledge, if we give ourselves 

 the trouble of finding out the mode of applying them. 

 If we find any one species of production, whether 

 animal or vegetable, predominant, we may be sur 

 that that production is the most intimately connected 

 with the active powers of the place with those 

 powers of which we must avail ourselves if we are to 

 turn it to our practical advantage. If we do not attend 

 to these means of instruction, we not only increase 

 the quantity of our labour, hut we, in many instances, 

 labour in vain, and not merely in vain, but we actually 

 defeat, by our ignorant exertions, the very objects 

 which we have in view. 



There are but few instances in which our science 

 guides us to the right application of what nature 

 has to teach ; and in the case of animals so peculiar 

 in their structure, and so obscure in their habits as the 

 family of the bats, we may say that we are, hitherto, 

 almost without the lesson of utility. They are, how- 

 ever, one of the races which should especially stimu- 

 late us in our inquiries. They are extraordinary 

 animals, for they have the structure of one clviss and 

 the habit of another ; and whenever we find these 

 extraordinary combinations in nature, we may be sure 

 that they are for the accomplishment of purposes as 

 extraordinary. 



What the specific purpose in the case of bats may 

 be, we have said that the present state of knowledge 

 does not furnish us w ith data for ascertaining ; but 

 they afford us one instance of a very curious fact, 

 namely, that none of the elements in which animals 

 can exist is confined to a single class ; and as the 

 mammalia are those which appear to have all the 

 functions of life in the highest state of development, we 

 find them seeking their subsistence in all the three 

 elements, on the earth, in the waters, and in the air, 

 in the case of the bats. 



BAUERA (Hortus KeVensis). Agenus of two spe- 

 cies of greenhouse shrubs, named in honour of Francis 

 and Ferdinand Bauer, eminent botanical draughtsmen. 

 Liumean class and order, Polyandna J)igi/7tui ; natural 

 order, Cunonutcete. Generic character : calyx from 

 six to eight cleft, persistent; corolla from six to 

 eight or more petals; stamens below the germen; 



