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colour, with black wings and ears, the last 
rounded and small. It is found almost 
throughout Europe. AVheii on the ground, 
it is frequently unable to rise, without as- 
cending some eminence for the greater con- 
venience of managing its wings. 
V. auritns, or the great-eaied bat, is dis- 
tinguished from the former by the size of 
its ears, which are more than an inch long. 
This is very common in England, and its 
manners, food, and size are similar to those 
of the former. These animals are stated to 
take their drink, as well as food, while upon 
the wing, as they flutter over streamlets or 
ponds, which they often do for the insect 
food so copiously supplied by these situa- 
tions. On the river Thames, in a fine even- 
ing in summer, they may occasionally be 
seen to the number of several scores, or 
even hundreds, in one view. By the an- 
cients the bat was consecrated to the god- 
dess of the infernal regions, and its general 
aspect, and nocturnal flights, and leathern 
wings, render it not an inappropriate inha- 
bitant of those obscure and dismal territo- 
ries. These animals are capable of being 
tamed, and have been brought to feed from 
a person’s hand. In one instance of this 
kind, they shewed extreme dexterity in 
clearing flies of their wings, which they al- 
ways refuse. They partook of raw flesh, 
but preferred insects j and, in taking their 
nourishment, they were desirous to avoid 
observation, and for this purpose stretched 
round their wings before their month. 
They occasionally ran, but with extreme 
ankwardness. 
V. spectrum, or thi spectre bat, is found 
in South America, and is a large species, its 
wings extending nearly two feet and a quar- 
ter. Its chief residence is in palm-trees. 
V. yampyrus, or the vampyre bat, is an 
inhabitant of India and South America, is 
about twelve inches long, and the extent of 
its wings is four feet, and in some extraor- 
dinary instances, it is said, six. Its tongue 
is pointed, and terminated by sharp prickles. 
It is reported to suck tlie blood of cattle, 
by inserting the point of its tongue into one’ 
of their veins during sleep, so as to excite 
little or no pain. Tins is said to be done 
by them with respect to men also. Various 
writers, of general respectability, concur iu 
these statements, and have observed, that 
in some parts of South America, and in In- 
dia, it is, on this account, highly dangerous 
to sleep in the open air, or in apartments 
with open windows. This property of suck- 
ing the blood of human beings, has long 
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been afiirmed of the hats of Europe ; but 
though assertions of this nature are incapa- 
ble of being contradicted, there does not 
appear to be any detail of well authenti- 
cated facts in their support. The two last 
species have no tail. 
VE.STA, one of the small planetary bo- 
dies discovered lately to revolve between 
the planets Mars and Jupiter : the follow- 
ing account is taken from the " Philosophi- 
cal Transactions.” 
“At our very first observations, with 
magnifying powers of 150 and 300, applied 
to the excellent new fifteen-feet reflector, 
we found the planet Vesta, without any ap- 
pearance of a disc, merely as a point, like a 
fixed star, with an inten.se, radiating light, 
and exactly of tlie same appearance as that 
of any fixed star of the sixth magnitude. In 
the same manner we both afterwards saw 
this planet several times with our naked 
eyes, when the sky was clear, and when it 
was surrounded by smaller invisible stars, 
which precluded all possibility of mistaking 
it for another. This proves how veiy like 
the intense light of this planet is to that of 
a fixed star. As the observations and mea- 
surements of Ceres, Pallas, and Juno, were 
made with the same eye-glasses, but with 
the thirteen-feet reflector, we soon after 
compared the planet Vesta with the same 
glasses of 136 and 288 times magnifying 
power in the thirteen-feet reflector. In 
both these telescopes its image was, with- 
out the least difference, that of a fixe.d star 
of the sixth magnitude, with an intense ra- 
diating light ; so that this new planet may, 
with the greatest propriety, be called an 
asteroid. 
“April 26th, in the evening, at nine 
o’clock, true time, I succeeded in effecting 
the measurement of Vesta, with the same 
power of 288, by means of the thirtee.vfeet 
l eflector, with which that of Ceres, Pallas, 
and Jiino had been made ; and when view- 
ed by this reflector, it also appeared ex- 
actly in the same manner. Of several illu- 
minated discs, of 2.0 to 0.5 decimal lines, 
which I had before made use of for mea- 
suring the satellites of Saturn and Jupiter, 
the smallest disc only of 0.5 lines could be 
used for this purpose ; by it the rounded 
nucleus of the planet Vesta, when the disc 
was at the distance of 611.0 lines from the 
eye, appeared almost of the same size, and 
I must even estimate its diameter as one- 
sixth smaller. If, therefore, we attend, not 
to the full magnitude of the projection, but 
the estimation just mentioned,' it follows, 
