CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 3. CHEIROPTERA. 



125 



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BATS OF EGYPT. 



one has only to throw a deep Rembrandt shade over a piece of canvas, and show a bat's wing 

 partly displayed from a cave, in order to give an infernal air to it, and make it, with very little 

 painting, a good poetical representation of the gates of hell. It is easy to see how a race which 

 is linked with such associations, should have had but a scanty measure of justice meted out to it 

 by the half-superstitious naturalists of the Middle Ages ; and a remnant of the same superstition 

 i*, no doubt, the cause of much of the horror which is still connected with some of the larger spe- 

 cies of warm countries. 



When we come to study the family of bats, however, in the light of natural history, not only 

 does the traditional horror to which we have alluded vanish, but in their structure and habits we 

 find much that is exceedingly curious. Their organs of sense are variously developed. The ears 

 are in general large, and in some of the species they have a duplicative or second concha, as if 

 there were one ear within the other. It is hence presumed that the sense of hearing is acute ; 

 and it may be that those which have the duplicature to the ears, have thus the means of closing 

 up the auditory passage, so that they may not be disturbed in their repose during the day. 



The eyes are very small, and deeply imbedded, something like those of moles ; and though 

 they must have the power of vision, it does not appear that they arc essential to the animal in 

 finding its way, even when it is intricate. Spallanzani suspended willow rods in a room. in 

 i which he turned loose some bats which he had blinded; but though he frequently shifted these, 

 so as to make the passage between them as varied and as intricate as possible, these creatures 

 never struck against one of them, though they kept flying about in all directions. The same ex- 

 periments have been made by others, and with a like result. The question has hence been raised 

 • as to the means by which bats contrive to avoid obstacles, and the same inquiry may be extended 



