BATS 37 



the ovidean metamorphosis, when the loose ex- 

 panding membrane of the hands and arms and 

 sides grew to wings. 



But albeit like a bird in its faculty of flight, the 

 bat was a mammal still, and was rather like a badly 

 constructed flying-machine, at best an improvement 

 on the parachute. This then was a risky experi- 

 ment on Nature's part, seeing that to launch a 

 mammal on the air is to put it into competition 

 with birds, and throw it in the way of its rapacious 

 bird enemies, natives of that element and infinitely 

 its superior in flying powers. But Nature, we see, 

 takes risks of this kind with a very light heart ; 

 her busy brain teems with thousands, millions, of 

 inventions, and if nine hundred and ninety-nine in 

 a thousand go wrong, she simply scraps them and 

 goes cheerfully on with her everlasting business. 

 An amusing person ! One can imagine some 

 Principality or High Intelligence, a visitor from 

 Aldebaran, let us say, looking on at these queer 

 doings on her part and remarking : " My dear, 

 what a silly fool you are to waste so much energy 

 in trying to do an impossible thing." 



And — nettled at his air of superiority — her 

 sharp reply : 



" Oh yes, now you say that, I'm reminded of a 

 visitor I once had from — oh, I don't know exactly 

 where — somewhere in the Milky Way — just when 

 I was experimenting with my snake idea. To make 

 a vertebrate without any organs of progression, yet 

 capable of getting freely about — ha, ha, ha, how 



