THE SENSE OF FEELING. 353 



The thick skin of the elephant is indeed far from being distin- 

 guished in this respect, nor has he reason to regret its obtuse - 

 ness while roaming through the thickets; but the termination of 

 his long hollow trunk is endowed with an exquisite delicacy of 

 touch, so that by means of this wonderful organ, which combines 

 a giant's strength with the flexibility of a willow-wand, he is able 

 not only to uproot trees and to raise prodigious weights, but 

 pick up the minutest objects from the ground. Its length supplies 

 the place of a long neck, which would have been incompatible 

 with the support of the large head and its weighty tusks ; he 

 makes use of it as efficiently as a hand in the performance of 

 many important offices ; it pumps up the enormous draughts of 

 water, which, by its recurvature, are turned into and driven down 

 the capacious throat, or spouted in refreshing showers over the 

 body ; it serves him to strike down the assaulting tiger with one 

 tremendous blow, or to raise with delicate attention a child 

 upon his back; and, to sum up its capabilities in one word, it 

 combines every function and renders every assistance which the 

 intelligent elephant required to raise himself above the level of 

 the brutal rhinoceros or the stupid hippopotamus. 



The long whiskers of the felidae are delicate organs of the sense 

 of feeling; but those of the shrews even surpass them in sensi- 

 tiveness of touch, and seem to make amends to these active little 

 creatures for the smallness of their eyes, which are almost hid- 

 den in the surrounding hairs, and formed but for twilight vision. 

 Thus armed, they feel at a distance of eight or nine inches the 

 slightest motion of the air, and the mere bending of a finger 

 held out to them unseen suffices to alarm them. The utmost 

 delicacy of touch, so as almost to reach the limits of credibility, 

 is however possessed by the bats, who need no collision with 

 any object to be advertised of its vicinity, but in the midst of 

 darkness avoid any object that presents itself with the same 

 unerring certainty as in the light. 



Spallanzani, having observed this wonderful power, instituted a 

 series of experiments, the results of which proved that bats 

 when deprived of sight by the extirpation of the eyes, and as 

 far as possible of hearing and smell by the obliteration of the 

 external passages of those senses, were still capable of direct- 

 ing their flight with the same security and accuracy as before. 



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