12 VESPERTILIONID^. 



them as quadrupeds ; of their possessing neither the tail 

 of quadrupeds nor of birds ; — of their being, in short, 

 birds with wings of skin. He is followed, but with in- 

 creasing error, by iElian and by Pliny ; the latter of 

 whom says, that the Bat is the only bird which brings 

 forth young ones and suckles them.* Even up to a late 

 period they were considered as forming a link between 

 quadrupeds and birds. It were a vain and useless task to 

 recount every slight modification of this pervading error. 

 The time has long gone by when Nature was accused of 

 the most extravagant vagaries by the professed investiga- 

 tors of her laws, and when the absurd expression of " lusus 

 natur£e," or other equivalent follies, was forced into their 

 service to account for all the wonders which their own 

 limited views and scanty information failed to explain. 



The common language of our own ancestors, however, 

 indicates a much nearer approach to the truth in the no- 

 tions entertained by the people, than can be found in the 

 lucubrations of the learned. The words lieremouse and 

 Flitfermouse, the old English names for the Bat, the for- 

 mer derived from the Anglo-Saxon ''raeran," to raise or 

 rear up, and " Mus," — the latter from the Belgic, signify- 

 ing "flying or flittering Mouse,^' or from the Anglo-Saxon 

 "flight," — show that in their minds these animals were 

 always associated with the idea of quadrupeds. The first 

 of these terms is still used in English heraldry ; though, 

 I believe, it has ceased to belong to the language of the 

 country. The w^ord Flittermouse, corrupted sometimes 

 into Flintymouse, is the common term for the Bat in 

 some parts of the country. This expressive example 

 of the correct observation of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 



* Volucrum animal parit vespertilio tantum : * * * « eadem sola volucrum 

 lacte nutrit, libera admovens ; geminos volitat amplexa infantes, secumque 

 deportat. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. x. c. Ixi. 



