ANIMALS OP NORTH AMERICA, 
11 
creation, and though having a marked resemblance to a 
quadruped, a great part of his life is spent in the air like a 
bird.” Instead of being oviparous or egg-laying, this is a 
lactescent, or milk-giving animal ; instead of living on grain, 
its food is flesh ; and instead of being like a bird, a biped or 
two-legged animal, it is a quadruped in the true sense of the 
term. 
Great ignorance prevailed among the ancients respecting 
bats. Aristotle describes them as 66 birds with skinny 
wings !” Pliny asserts that they are “ birds which produce 
their young alive, and suckle them while Aldrovandus, 
who always has something exquisitely graphic, places them 
in the same family as the Ostrich, giving as his reason, that 
“ these two species partake equally of the nature of quadru- 
peds ! !” How, why, or from what similitude, he leaves an 
open subject. 
The wings of the bat are formed by the extension of a fine 
membrane over the elongated fingers of the fore-legs, reach- 
ing as far as, and fastened to, or rather stretched over the 
hind-legs. As however the four fingers are involved in the 
