XATURAL HISTORY. 255 



THE BAT. 



AN* animal which, like the bat, is half quadruped 

 and half bird, and which in fact is neither the one nor 

 the other, is a kind of monster. In the bat, the fore 

 feet are, properly speaking, neither wings nor feet, 

 though the animal uses them both for the purpose of 

 flying and walking. They are in fact, two shapeless 

 extremities, of which the bones are of a monstrous 

 length, and connected by a membrane, neither with fea- 

 thers nor hair : they are a kind of winged paws, of 

 which we only see one claw about the length of an inch, 

 and of which the other four claws, though very long, 

 cannot act but in conjunction, and have no peculiar 

 movements, no separate functions. They are a kind 

 of hands ten times larger than the feet, and, in al), 

 four times longer than the whole length of the body of 

 the animal. In short they are parts which have rather 

 the appearance of a capracious and accidental, than of 

 a regular and determined production. 



To these incongruities, these disproportions of the 

 body and members, may be added the still more strik- 

 ing deformities of the head. In some species, the nose 

 is hardly visible, the eyes are sunk near the tip of the 



