BAT. 
345 
round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its 
head, in the manner of birds of prey when they 
feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the 
wings of flies, which were always rejected, was worthy 
of observation, and pleased me much. Insects 
seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not re- 
fuse raw flesh when offered ; so that the notion that 
bats go down chimneys and gnaw men’s bacon, seems 
no improbable story. While I amused myself with 
this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times 
confute the vulgar opinion, that bats, when down 
on a flat surface, cannot get on the wing again, by 
rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I ob- 
served, with more dispatch than I was aware of, 
but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner.” 
The cruel experiments tried by Spallanzani on 
bats, we consider as disgraceful to humanity, as they 
could not lead to any useful discovery ; and it must 
surely be at all times beneath the true philoso- 
pher, to trifle with the feelings of any being, how- 
ever low it may rank in the scale of animated na- 
ture. 
It appears from his experiments, that the eyes of 
bats are not necessary to guide them in their flight, 
since he first destroyed them, and then covered the 
empty sockets with leather : even in this state the 
wretched animals continued to fly round the room, 
without touching the sides or striking against any 
thing ; they likewise flew out of the door without 
touching the architraves. The Abbe, that he might 
be certain this ability to dispense with the organ of 
