12 



EVENINGS AT THE BHOEOSCOrE. 



that each is formed of two half-encirclirg scales ; for 

 one scale occasionally springs from the level of its fel- 

 low, so as to make the imbrication alternate. 



Even this, however, is far excelled by a species of 

 Bat from India, of whose hair I have now specimens on 

 the stage. The trumpet-like cups are here very thin 

 and transparent, but very expansive ; the diameter of 

 the lip being, in some parts of the hair, fully thrice as 

 great as that of the stem itself. The margin of each cup 

 appears to be imdivided, but very irregularly notched 

 and cut. In the middle portion of the hair, the cups 

 are far more crowded than in the basal part, more brush- 

 like, and less elegant ; and this structure is continued 

 to the very extremity, which is not drawn out to so at- 

 tenuated a point as the hair of the Mouse, though it is 

 of a needle-like sharpness. The trumpet-shaped scales 

 are, it seems, liable to be removed by 

 accident ; for in these dozen hairs there 

 are several, in which we see one or 

 more cups rubbed off, and in one the 

 stem is destitute of them for a consid- 

 erable space. The stem so denuded 

 closely resembles the basal part of a 

 Mouse's hair in its normal condition. 



This character of being clothed with 

 overlapping scales, each growing out of 

 its predecessor, is common, then, to the 

 hairs of the Mammalia, though it exists 

 in different degrees of development. It 

 may be readily detected by the unaided 

 sense, even when the eye, though as- 

 sisted by the microscope, fails to recognise it. Al- 

 most every schoolboy is familiar with the mode 



HAIK OF INDIAN BAT. 



