Experiments without Cruelty. 



It is quite possible that what I have written will lead 

 investigators to make experiments on Bats. I therefore 

 suggest how these experiments may be conducted without 

 cruelty. 



We all know that if we capture a wild bird and liberate 

 it in a large room with closed windows, it makes a wild and 

 furious rush for what its senses tell it is an opening 

 through which it can escape ; its eyes do not reveal the 

 presence of glass. The result is, a broken neck and instant 

 death. 



Suppose now that we make the same experiment with a 

 Bat. Before the Bat is liberated it does not perceive the 

 glass, it simply appears to be an opening through which it 

 cari escape, exactly as was the case with the bird, and like 

 the bird, when liberated it makes a rush to escape. The 

 flapping of the wings brings its sixth sense into action and 

 it soon perceives that it is face to face with a solid wall. It 

 stops short before it touches the glass, but as its eyes tell it 

 that the road is clear it is naturally greatly puzzled and 

 continues to face the glass without touching it for some 

 time. However, it places much more reliance on the sixth 

 sense than on the sense of sight, otherwise its fate would be 

 the same as that of the bird. 



Naturalists have made this experiment, and those that 

 will not admit that the Bat possesses a sixth sense will 

 perhaps explain this phenomenon. 



The bird found the glass by the sense of feeling, which 

 is defined in the dictionary as "the sense of touch," with 

 fatal results. The Bat found it by a sense which is not 

 possessed by other animals what shall we call this sense ? 



HIRAM S. MAXIM. 

 877 NORWOOD ROAD, 



WEST NORWOOD, 



LONDON, S.E, 



