THE BAT : AN ATROCIOUS JOKE. 
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bigus marked in tbe corner with the abnormal, the hideous, and 
the fantastic. 
Is it the black spirit of the abyss — the standard-bearer of Sa- 
tan — the fleshless and livid phantom which the fear of hell causes 
to appear at the truckle-bed of the death-bound — the spectre with 
hideous laugh, that rises from the tombs at twilight and re-enters 
them at dawir — the skeleton with the scythe sailing through the 
regions of darkness with silent flight? It is at .once all this and 
something more. It is the image of Death in the Lymbic socie- 
ties — the image of the painful transition — the nightmare of terri- 
fied imaginations. 
The bat inhabits dark caves like the spectres, gloomy caverns, 
and trunks of dead trees, dismal holes, and crevices of old walls, 
which it leaves also at that doubtful hour which precedes the 
night. By day, hanging from the vault of sepulchral grottos, it 
imitates the absolute stillness of the dead in his shroud. The 
veil-like membranes which sustain it in the air have served as pat- 
terns for all those mortuary tapestries which adorn the vaults of 
cemeteries. 
Half bird, half quadruped, it is indeed the transition from an in- 
ferior life to a supei-ior life. But to what species of superior life 
— that is the question ; listen patiently, and it will tell you all. 
The bat is one of those rare species which enjoy the singular 
privilege of inspiring at first sight mortal antipathies, and of caus- 
ing nervous persons to fall into swoons. It partakes this sad fac- 
ulty with the toad, emblem of the beggar — with the spider, em- 
blem of the shopkeeper — with the viper, emblem of treachery. 
Now remark well this circumstance : the bat is an innocent beast! 
There is the word of the enigma. 
The bat is an innocent beast — more than innocent, useful, and 
continuing the service of the swallow, interrupted by night. The 
bat makes war on all insects and on all nocturnal vermin which 
afflict humanity and its fruit-trees. 
Ah then ! but since this hideous creature which enjoys su- 
preme ugliness and the supreme faculty of repulsion, is only an inno- 
cent animal, even useful, was that dread which we are taught for 
death, for that transition so disquieting, only an atrocious joke ? 
