122 



VESPERTILrO BAT. 



Generic Character, 



Denies omnes erecti, acumi- 

 nata, approximati. 



Manus palmatae volitantes 

 membrana corpus cingente. 



Teeth erect, sharp-pointed, ap- 

 proximated. 



Hands palmated with a mem- 

 brane furrounding the body 

 and giving the animal the 

 power of flight. 



X HE curious formation of these animals cannot 

 be contemplated without admiration : the bones 

 of the extremities being continued into long and 

 thin processes, connected by a most delicately- 

 formed membrane or skin,, capable, from its thin- 

 ness, of being contracted at pleasure into innume- 

 rable wrinkles, so as to lie in a small space when 

 the animal is at rest, and to be stretched to a very 

 wide extent for occasional flight. 



Should a speculative philosopher, not aware of 

 the anatomical impossibility of success, attempt, 

 by means of light machinery, to exercise the 

 power of flight, he could not hit on a more plau- 

 sible idea than that of copying the structure de- 

 scribed. Accordingly a celebrated author has 

 most justly and judiciously represented a sage 

 theorist busied in imitating, for this purpose, 

 " the folding continuity of the wing of a Bat." 



The species of this extraordinary genus are nu- 

 merous, and may be divided into the tailed and the 

 tailless Bats. 



