B'AT TRIBE. 
69 
in a small space when the animal is at rest, and 
to be stretched to a very wide extent fox occa- 
sional flight. 
Should a speculative philosopher, not aware of 
the anatomical impossibility of success, attempt, 
by means of light machinery, to exercise the pow> 
er of flight, he could not hit on a more plausible 
idea than of copying the structure described. 
Accordingly, a celebrated author has represented, 
a sage theorist busied in imitating, for this pur- 
pose, the folding continuity of the wing of the 
bat." 
Although this membrane enables the bat, after 
it has once raised itself from the ground, which 
it does with some difficulty, to flit along the air, 
yet all its motions, when compared with those of 
birds, are clumsy and awkward ; and in walk- 
ing, its feet appear so entangled with its wings, 
that it seems scarcely able to drag its body 
along. 
The bat, like the mouse, is capable of being 
tamed to a certain degree ; and we are told by 
Mr. White, that he was once much amused with 
the sight of a tame bat. It would take flies out 
of a person’s hand. If you gave it any thing to 
eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, 
hovering and hiding its head in the manner of 
birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it 
shewed in shearing off the wings of the flies (w hich 
were always rejected) was worthy of observation, 
and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be 
most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw 
flesh when offered. While I amused myself with 
this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times 
confute the vulgar opinion, that bats, when down 
on a fiat surface, cannot get on the wing again, 
by rising with great case from the floor. It 
^an, I observed, with more dispatch than I was 
