EVENINGS AT THE MICROSCOPE 



Even this, however, is far excelled by a species of Bat 

 from India, of whose hair I have now specimens on the 

 stage. The trumpet-like cups are here very thin and trans- 

 parent, but very expansive ; the diameter of the lip being, 

 in some parts of the hair, fully thrice as great as that of 

 the stem itself. The margin of each cup appears to be 

 undivided, but very irregularly notched and cut. In the 

 middle portion of the hair, the cups are far more crowded 

 than in the basal part, more brush-like and less elegant; and 



this structure is continued to 

 the very extremity, which is 

 not drawn out to so attenu- 

 ated a point as the hair of 

 the Mouse, though it is of a 

 needle-like sharpness. The 

 trumpet-shaped scales are, it 

 seems, liable to be removed 

 by accident; for in these doz- 

 en hairs there are several in 

 which we see one or more 

 cups rubbed off, and in one 

 the stem is destitute of them 

 for a considerable space. The 

 stem so denuded closely resembles the basal part of a 

 Mouse's hair in its normal condition. 



This character of being clothed with overlapping scales, 

 each growing out of its predecessor, is common, then, to 

 the hairs of the Mammalia, though it exists in different 

 degrees of development. ' It may be readily detected by the 

 unaided sense, even when the eye, though assisted by the 

 microscope, fails to recognize it. Almost every schoolboy 

 is familiar with the mode by which the tip of any hair may 



HAIR OF BAT. 



HAIR OP INDIAN BAT. 



