LONG-EARED BAT. 
127 
tion of their manners^ answering extremely well 
to the general description of those monsters. 
I know not whether it may be worth while to 
mention the celebrated experiments of Spallan- 
zani, respecting a supposed additional sense or 
faculty in Bats^ enabling them, when deprived of 
sight, to avoid any obstacles as readily as when 
they retained their power of vision. These expe- 
riments are cruel, and^ perhaps, do not lead to 
any very important discoveries in the animal oeco- 
nomy: nevertheless, that I may not seem entirely 
to neglect a phenomenon which has been thought 
worthy of attention by several eminent experi- 
mentalists, I shall here give a short abstract of the 
professor s observations. 
Having observed that Bats would fly in the 
darkest chambers with precision, and not even 
touch the walls, he found them equally exact in 
their motions when the eyes were closely covered ; 
and at length he destroyed the eyes, and covered 
the socket with leather; and even in this state 
the animal continued to fly with the same preci- 
sion as before; avoiding the walls, and cautiously 
suspending its flight in seeking where to perch. 
It even flies out at a door without touching the 
architraves. The abbe repeated his experiments 
on several species of bats ; and with the same suc- 
cess. These experiments were repeated by Vas- 
salli at Turin, by Rossi at Pisa, Spadon at Bologna, 
and Jurin at Geneva. The professor's arguments 
for supposing that in these instances no other 
sense can supply the place of sight are these : 
