io6 The Poets Beasts. 



for each specifies a fact of observation — the " scouting " of 

 the bat, which, like a pigeon thrown up into the air, first 

 casts about in the sky for a while till it gets its bearings, 

 and then settles down to its work, and the sudden evanish- 

 ments of bats on the wing, eluding the eye by marvellous 

 nimbleness. Shelley has "quick bats in their twilight 

 dance," and Hurdis, with his usual clumsy fidelity — 



"What time the bat 

 Hurries precipitous on leathern wing, 

 Brisk evolution in the dusky air 

 With sudden wheels performing." 



But all the rest of the "fluttering," "wavering," "flitting," 

 " mazy " bats are studiously commonplace, and thrown in 

 as it were by way of a touch of local colour, just as bees 

 are sprinkled about in a flowery verse by poets who need 

 a little insect life. 



But why should the bat be taunted as being "torpid," 

 "drowsy," "lazy-lurking?" It is no lazier than the sky- 

 lark. The only difference is that it usually (not as a rule) 

 sleeps all day, instead of sleeping all night. Are the 

 printers of the London morning papers " torpid," " drowsy," 

 and " lazy-lurking ? " Yet they have to do the same. One 

 poet only, A. Wilson, does the little mouse-on-wings justice : 



" The bat, the busiest of the midnight train, 

 That wing the air or sulky tread the plain, 

 Sees morning open on each field and flower, 

 And ends her mazes in yon ruined tower." 



So much for the poets' best side of the bat, the bat 

 natural ; but even to it, imperfect as it is, has to be added 

 the normal error of the poets of thinking that the bat was 

 a bird, "an ominous fowl" — 



" Oui, je te reconnais, je t'ai vu dans mes songes, 

 Triste oiseau ! soeur du hibou fun^bre. " 



So says Victor Hugo, and the error of the bird-bat is 



