BAT KIND. 235 



seems rather to choose a place where it may con- 

 tinue safe from interruption, than where it may 

 be warmly or conveniently lodged. For this 

 reason it is usually seen hanging by its hooked 

 claws to the roofs of caves, regardless of the 

 eternal damps that surround it. The bat seems 

 the only animal that will venture to remain in 

 these frightful subterranean abodes, where it con- 

 tinues in a torpid state, unaffected by every change 

 of the weather. Such of this kind as are not 

 provident enough to procure themselves a deep 

 retreat, where the cold and heat seldom vary, are 

 sometimes exposed to great inconveniencies, for 

 the weather often becomes so mild in the midst 

 of winter as to warm them prematurely into life, 

 and to allure them from their holes in quest of 

 food, when nature has not provided a supply. 

 These, therefore, have seldom strength to return ; 

 but, having exhausted themselves in a vain pur- 

 suit after insects which are not to be found, are 

 destroyed by the owl, or any other animal that 

 follows such petty prey. 



The bat couples and brings forth in summer, 

 generally from two to five at a time : of this I am 

 certain, that I have found five young ones in a 

 hole together ; but whether they were the issue 

 of one parent, I cannot tell. The female has but 

 two nipples, and those forward on the breast, as 

 in the human kind. This was a sufficient motive 

 for Linnaeus to give it the title of a Prirnas, to 

 rank it in the same order with mankind, and to 

 push this contemptible animal among the chiefs 

 of the creation. Such arbitrary associations pro- 



