GKEATER HOUSE-SHOE BAT. 91 



fully believe. Mr. Blyth has remarked of Vespertilio 

 Nattereri, that when flying round a room it struck a 

 glass case with its wings ; and we have seen the Noctule 

 and Pipistrelle, when liberated from a box in a room, 

 fly repeatedly against the glass of the window in their 

 attempt to escape. A Horse-shoe Bat, on the contrary, 

 when turned loose in the same room, and a Pipistrelle 

 with it, avoided with perfect ease all sorts of objects, 

 and the most careful examination we could make of its 

 movements failed to detect so much as a touch of the 

 wing, even when flying close to the glass of the window, 

 which it appeared to be carefully examining, as if with 

 the Pipistrelle it expected a means of escape which it 

 failed to discover. When we consider that the glass 

 would be equally visible or invisible to the one Bat as 

 to the other, the experiment becomes interesting, as it 

 tends to confirm those made by Spallanzani and M. de 

 Jurine, with perhaps the difference that the faculty which 

 they have ascribed to Bats generally, may be confined 

 to such only as are possessed of a high degree of deve- 

 lopment of the cutaneous system. 



A very remarkable peculiarity is said to appertain to 

 the Bats of the family, which is the existence of a pair 

 of supposed inguinal teats, in addition to the pectoral 

 pair which belong to the whole order. They have been 

 observed by numerous continental authors, and were also 

 discovered by Montagu, when searching for certain para- 

 sites which infest these animals. Geofiroy is so certain 

 of their being true mammary teats, that he at once goes 

 into his favourite theory of analogies to account for and 

 support this opinion ; and certainly, if his statement be 

 correct, this is not the most remarkable instance of a 

 deviation from a similar rule, for, says he, " etant en 

 1827 k Marseilles, oii m'y a fait connaitre une femme qui 



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