THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



321 



legs, it is true, enable them to leap with great agility, Ixit 

 their fore-feet are too small to allow of long journe3rs. And 

 besides this, the virgin soil of Australia always provides 

 them with abundant nourishment in the midst of its lofty 

 herbage. 



The most remarkable thing is that those mammals which 

 seem endowed with the greatest facilities for moving from 

 place to place, are precisely those which lead the most 



^kt^- 



1S2. X3'cterus of Upper Egypt. 



restricted life in this respect. We mean the l)ats, which, 

 although they possess wings large enough, are never known 

 to rpiit the site they have chosen. Thus the Nyctcrus of 

 Upper Egypt, which can make itself so light by hlling with 

 air certain pouches midcr its skin, scarcely quits the 

 sombre windings of the pyramids and temples of ancient 

 Egypt, where it sometimes swarms in such numbers as to 



