Q2 '•HE BAT TRIBE, 



the Other they claim a placC;, from their structure, 

 both externally and internally. 



Bats have erect sharp-pointed teeth, placed near 

 together. Their fore-toes are lengthened, and con- 

 nected by the membranes which perform the ofhce 

 of winos *. 



Their structure cannot be contemplated without 

 admiration, the bones of the extremities being con- 

 tinued into long and thin processes, connected by a 

 most delicately formed membrane or skin, capable, 

 from its thinness, of being contracted at pleasure 

 into innumerable wrinkles, so as to lie in a small 

 space when the animal is at rest, and to be 

 stretched to a very wide extent for occasional flight. 

 — Should a speculative Philosopher, not aware of 

 the anatomical impossibility of success, attempt, by 

 means of light machinery, to exercise the power 

 of flight, he could not hit on a more plausible idea 

 than that of copying the structure described. Ac- 

 cordingly, a celebrated author has represented a sage 

 theorist busied in imitating, for this purpose, " the 

 folding continuity of the wing of the Bat-I^." — 

 Although this membrane enables the Bat, after it 

 has once raised itself from the ground, which it does 

 with some difficulty, to flit along the air, yet all its 

 moti-ons, when compared with those of birds, are 

 clumsy and awkv/ard ; and, in walking, its feet ap- 

 pear so entangled with its wings, that it seems 

 scarcely able to drag its body along. 



* Linn. GmeL i. 4.5. t Show's, Gen. Zool. i. 122. 



