ORDER CARNASSIER. 85 



rank them exactly among quadrupeds. His theoretical de- 

 ductions, from their want of tail and crupper, are by no 

 means founded on any positive observations. 



Pliny notices them only to remark that there are birds 

 which are viviparous and suckle their offspring by means of 

 teats. 



On the revival of letters in Europe, men were contented 

 in this respect, as in every other, to copy the ancients. 

 Aldrovandus was the first who expanded a little on the sub- 

 ject of the bats ; but in conformity with the prejudices of 

 his age, he made one family of them and the ostrich, 

 because these two species of birds partake equally of the 

 nature of quadrupeds. Scaliger makes quite a sort of mi- 

 racle of the bat : he discovers that it has two and four legs : 

 that it walks without paws, and flies without wings : that 

 it sees in darkness and is blind in light : in short, that it is 

 the most remarkable of all birds, for it has teeth while it is 

 destitute of a beak. 



Even at a later period the organization of the cheiroptera 

 was but little studied. They were considered only as far 

 as it was necessary to comprehend them in certain me- 

 thodical distributions, and those points of their conforma- 

 tion alone attended to which corresponded with the bases 

 which had been arbitrarily established for zoological sys- 

 tems. However, a pretty correct idea was soon attained of 

 the affinities of the bats, for, fortunately, such external cha- 

 racters were chosen as grounds of distinction, as corre- 

 sponded with anatomical characters more general and more 

 profound. The bats were no longer separated from vivipa- 

 rous quadrupeds : a profounder study of their organization 

 confirmed those indications which their teeth had furnished. 



The bats, like the viviparous quadrupeds in general, have 

 the bilocular heart, the cellular lungs, suspended and en- 

 closed in the pleura ; the muscular diaphragm interposed 

 between the cavity of the thorax and that of the abdomen ; 



