247 



selves by the claw, or hook on the wings with their heads down- 

 wards, when they repose or eat, in which posture they hang by 

 thousands in the shades of Cubbeer-Burr. Archdeacon Paley re^ 

 marks, that " the hook in the wing of a bat is strictly a mechani- 

 cal, and also a compensating contrivance. At the angle of its wing 

 there is a bent claw, exactly in the form of a hook, by which the 

 bat attaches itself to the sides of rocks, caves, and buildings, laying 

 hold of crevices, joinings, chinks, and roughnesses. It hooks itself 

 by this claw, remains suspended by this hold, takes its flight from 

 this position, which operations compensate for the decrepitude of 

 its legs and feet. Without her hook, the bat would be the most 

 helpless of all animals. She can neither run upon her feet, nor 

 raise herself from the ground ; these inabilities are made up to her 

 by the contrivance in her wing ; and in placing a claw in that part 

 the Creator has deviated from the analogy observed on winged 

 animals. A singular defect required a singular substitute." 



As some of the monkey tribe seem to unite the brute to the 

 human species, in the great chain of creation, so the bat forms the 

 link between birds and beasts. Naturalists have disputed to which 

 class they belong. Pliny and the ancients place them among the 

 feathered race : the moderns, with greater propriety, arrange them 

 with quadrupeds. Like a bird they have wings, and the power of 

 flying; unlike the oviparous tribes, they bring forth their young 

 alive, and suckle them ; the mouth is furnished with very sharp 

 teeth, and shaped like that of a fox. 



The most disagreeable inhabitants of this verdant caravansary 

 are snakes, which in great variety dwell among the branches ; some 

 malignant, others innocuous. The monkeys destroy a number of 



