ANIMALS OF THE 



capable of covering themselves up completely. 

 The Tatu Apara, for instance, when rolled up, 

 presents two great interstices between its bands, 

 by which it is very easily vulnerable, even by the 

 feeblest of quadrupeds. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ANIMALS OF THE BAT KIND. 



HAVING in the last chapter described a race of 

 animals that unite the boundaries between qua- 

 drupeds and insects, I come in this to a very dif- 

 ferent class, that serve to fill up the chasm between 

 quadrupeds and birds. Some naturalists, indeed, 

 have found animals of the bat kind so much par- 

 taking of the nature of both, that they have been 

 at a loss in which rank to place them, and have 

 doubted, in giving the history of the bat, whether 

 it was a beast or a bird they were describing. 

 These doubts, however, no longer exist; they 

 are now universally made to take their place 

 among quadrupeds, to which their bringing forth 

 their young alive, their hair, their teeth, as well 

 as the rest of their habitudes and conformation, 

 evidently entitle them.* Pliny, Gesner, and 

 Aldrovandus, who placed them among birds, did 



[* In these animals, all the teeth are erect, pointed, and near each otlier^ 

 and the first four are equal. The fore-feet haye the toes connected by a 

 membrane, expanded into a kind of wings, by which they are enabled to fly.] 



