506 TROPICAL BATS 



man loves the swallow, and suffers him to build his nest under 

 the eaves of his dwelling, he abhors the bat, which like an evil 

 spirit avoids the light of day, and seems to feel happy only in 

 darkness. The painter gives to his angels the white pinions of 

 the swan, while his demons are made to bear the black wings 

 of the bat. And yet the bat, in Europe at least, is a most in- 

 offensive creature, which, may well claim the gratitude of 

 the farmer, from the vast number of cockchafers and other 

 noxious insects which it destroys ; while a closer inspection of 

 its wonderful organisation proves it to be far more deserving of 

 admiration than of repugnance. Can anything be better adapted 

 to its wants than the delicate membrane, which, extending over 

 the long slim fingers, can be spread and folded like an umbrella, 

 so as to form a wing when the animal wishes to fly, and to 

 collapse into a small space when it is at rest ? How slight the 

 bones, how light the body, how beautifully formed for flight ! 

 Admire also the tiny unwebbed thumb, which serves the bat 

 to hook itself fast while resting, or to clip off the wings of 

 the flies or moths, which it never devours with the rest of 

 the body. 



But the exquisite acuteness of the senses of smell, feeling, and 

 hearing in the bat is still more wonderful than its delicate 

 flying apparatus. Naturalists, more curious than humane, have 

 blinded bats, and seen, to their astonishment, that they con- 

 tinued to fly about, as if still possessed of the power of vision. 

 They always knew how to avoid branches suspended in the 

 room in which they were flitting, and even flew betwixt threads 

 hung perpendicularly from the ceiling, though these were so 

 near each other, that they were obliged to contract their wings 

 in order to pass through them. 



To explain these wonderful phenomena, Spallanzani and other 

 naturalists of the last century believed the bats to be endowed 

 with a sixth sense ; but Carlyle found that, on closing the ears 

 of the blinded creatures, they lose their wonderful power, and 

 hit against the sides of the room, without being at all aware of 

 their situation. 



How they are able to distinguish night from day, Avhen shut 

 up in a dark box, is a fact still unexplained. As long as the 

 sun stands above the horizon, they will remain perfectly quiet, I' 



