128 LONG-EARED BAT. 



<( Touch cannot, in this case, supply the place of 

 sight, because an animal covered with hair cannot 

 be supposed to have that sense very delicate. In 

 flying through the middle of a sewer which turned 

 at right angles, the Bats regularly bent their flight 

 at the curvature, though two feet distant from the 

 walls. They discovered holes for their retreat; 

 found a resting-place on the cornice; avoided the 

 branches of trees suspended in a room; flew 

 through threads hung perpendicularly from the 

 ceiling, without touching, though they were 

 scarcely at a greater distance than that of their 

 extended wings; and when the threads were 

 brought nearer they contracted their wings to 

 pass through them. They equally avoided every 

 obstacle, though the whole head was covered 

 with a varnish made of sandarach dissolved in 

 spirit of wine. 



" The ear could not have discovered a cornice 

 or the threads: this sense, therefore, does not 

 compensate the want of vision. Besides, Bats fly 

 equally well when the ear is most carefully co- 

 vered. The smell might possibly assist them ; for 

 when the nose was stopped, they breathed with 

 difficulty, and soon fell. While they did fly, how- 

 ever, they avoided obstacles very well; and the 

 smell could scarcely have assisted them in disco- 

 vering the suspended threads. The taste must 

 have been, in every respect, unequal to the task 

 of supplying the place of sight. " 



From Mr. Jurin's anatomical observations on 

 these animals, it appears that a very large propor- 



