236 ANIMALS OF THE 



duce rather ridicule than instruction, and render 

 even method contemptible : however, we are to 

 forgive too strong an attachment to system in 

 this able naturalist, since his application to the 

 particular history of the animal counterbalances 

 the defect.* 



From Linnaeus we learn, that the female makes 

 no nest for her young, as most birds and quadru- 

 peds are known to do. She is barely content 

 with the first hole she meets, where, sticking her- 

 self by her hooks against the sides of her apart- 

 ment, she permits her young to hang at the nip- 

 ple, and in this manner to continue for the first 

 or second day. When, after some time, the dam 

 begins to grow hungry, and finds a necessity of 

 stirring abroad, she takes her little ones and sticks 

 them to the wall, in the manner she before hung 

 herself; there they immovably cling, and pa- 

 tiently wait till her return. 



Thus far this animal seems closely allied to the 

 quadruped race. Its similitude to that of birds 

 is less striking. As nature has furnished birds 

 with extremely strong pectoral muscles, to move 

 the wings, and direct their flight, so has it also fur- 

 nished this animal. As birds also have their legs 

 weak, and unfit for the purposes of motion, the 

 bat has its legs fashioned in the same manner, 

 and is never seen to walk, or, more properly 

 speaking, to push itself forward with its hind- 

 legs, but in cases of extreme necessity. The 

 toes of the fore-legs, or, if we may use the ex- 



* Fauna Succia, p. 8. 



