274 THE BAT. 



to us than itself can possibly be ; while its evening flight, 

 and its unsteady, wabbling motion, amuse the imagination, 

 and add one figure more to the pleasing group of animated 

 nature. 



The varieties of this animal, especially in our country, 

 are but few ; and the differences scarce worth enumera- 

 tion. Naturalists mention the Long-eared Bat, much less 

 than that generally seen, and with much longer ears ; the 

 Horse-shoe Bat, with an odd protuberance round its upper 

 lip, somewhat in the form of a horse-shoe ; the Rhinoceros 

 Bat, with a horn growing from the nose, somewhat similar 

 to that animal from whence it has the name. These, with 

 several others, whose varieties are too numerous, and dif- 

 ferences too minute for a detail, are all inoffensive, minute, 

 and contemptible ; incapable, from their size, of injuring 

 mankind, and not sufficiently numerous much to incom- 

 mode him. But there is a larger race of bats, found in the 

 East and West Indies, that are truly formidable ; each of 

 these is singly a dangerous enemy, but when they unite in 

 flocks, they then become dreadful. Were the inhabitants 

 of the African coasts, says Des Marchais, to e.at animals of 

 the bat kind, as they^o in the East Indies, they would 

 never want a supply of provisions. They are there in such 

 numbers, that when they fly, they obscure the setting sun. 

 In the morning, at peep of day, they are seen sticking upon 

 the tops of the trees, and clinging to each other, like bees 

 when they swarm, or like large clusters of cocoa. -The 

 Europeans often amuse themselves with shooting among 

 this huge mass of living creatures, and observing their em- 

 barrassment when wounded. They sometimes enter the 

 houses, and the negroes are expert at killing them ; but 

 although these people seem for ever hungry, yet they re- 

 gard the bat with horror, and will not eat it, though ready 

 to starve. 



Of foreign bats, the largest we have any certain accounts 

 of, is the Rousette, or the great bat of Madagascar. This 



