THE BAT.

THIS animal has in all ages been regarded with feelings of superstitious awe and terror. The nocturnal nature of its habits, its strange and anomalous structure, and the retired and gloomy places in which it takes up its abode, have all contributed to invest it with a character of mystery and horror extremely repugnant to the gentleness and harmlessness of its nature.

The bat, of which there are many varieties, is in general about the size of a mouse, an animal which many of the species very much resemble in appearance. It is covered with smooth hair, which varies in colour in the different species. Between the fore and hind feet and extending along the sides of the animal, the skin is spread out into a broad thin membrane, and thus forms its wings or means of flight. When it flies, it holds this skin stretched out by means of its fingers, which are greatly elongated for this purpose, in a manner which has not inaptly been compared to the silk on the rods of an umbrella. The skin which thus acts

the part of wings, is extremely thin, and is generally devoid of hair. Besides forming a "web" between the long extended fingers of the animal, it stretches to its hind legs, and from thence to the tail, which it also includes, and is thus supplied with a sort of rudder by which it is enabled to change its course rapidly, either in pursuit of food or to avoid the obstructions which, in the eagerness of its chase, it frequently encounters, and from which it would otherwise be exposed to injury.

The finger of the fore-foot, answering to the human thumb, is not, like the others, enveloped in the membraneous appendage which forms the animal's means of flight, but is left free. It has not the extended development of the other fingers, but is supplied at its extremity with a hooked nail or claw, by which the animal occasionally suspends itself when at rest. The toes of the hind-feet are also supplied with hooked nails, by which it usually hangs from trees or walls with its head downwards.

The bat is a nocturnal animal, hiding itself during the day in the gloomy recesses of decayed trees, or deserted mansions, or caves of the earth. After night-fall it comes abroad in quest of such

insects as, like itself, avoid the glare of day. Long ere day-light again appears, it retires to its place of retreat, and, affixing itself by its hind claws to the bark of the tree or projecting piece of rock, sleeps till night again permits it to sally forth in search of food. It builds no nest: it even brings forth and rears its young-of which the female generally produces one only at a birth-suspended by its claws. During the winter, in our northern climate, it hibernates, or remains torpid, till the genial heat of spring once more awakes it to activity. Though, from the nature of its structure, the bat is properly an animal of flight, it can walk on the ground, and even climb up such rugged surfaces as afford the means of fixing the hooked nail of its thumb. Perhaps one of the most interesting peculiarities of the bat is the extreme facility with which it avoids obstructions in its flight. To test this power to the utmost, a naturalist, named Spallanzani, tried a variety of cruel experiments. After having found it remarkably developed in perfect animals, he proceeded to deprive them of sight, and even, as far as was possible, of hearing and smelling, and found that they still

flew about with equal certainty and safety, avoiding such obstructions as he placed in their way, passing through apertures just large enough to admit their bodies, without coming into collision. He stretched strings across the room in various directions with the same result. Cuvier refers this extreme sensibility to the wings of the animal, the naked surface and delicate structure of which enable it, he thinks, to perceive the propinquity of solid bodies from the manner in which the air re-acts upon them. So extreme, indeed, is their sensibility, that even when in a torpid state, the animal shrinks from the touch before actual contact, and from the light of a candle, though they have no tendency to wake it from its slumbers.

"Some of the species of bats," says an acute observer," occasionally fly during the day; but this habit is by no means common, and is confined to some of the foreign species, which are in part vegetable feeders. In temperate climates they conceal themselves during the day; evening is the season of their greatest activity. Caverns, holes of trees and walls, and ruined buildings, are their

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retreats; and from these they issue forth as duşk begins to set in, flutter about in their laborious flight, and capture such insects as are then on the wing-gnats, musquitoes, moths, and beetles; and their wide gape, with its formidable teeth, is an excellent trap for the capture of such prey. The service which they render to vegetation by the destruction of insects which in the larva state prey upon it, is very considerable even in temperate climates; and some of the hot countries, in which they swarm in myriads, could not but for this be inhabited. In humid places, on the margin of tropical forests, mosquitoes are troublesome enough as it is; but if the bats did not thin their numbers they would be utterly unbearable. Those species too which frequent the towns and settlements are useful in other respects. Most of the race are miscellaneous in their feeding, and not very delicate in their taste. They devour indiscriminately all animal substances, whether raw or dressed, and whether in a fresh or putrid state."

"Though the bats are upon the whole," continues the same writer, "useful rather than hurtful to man, they are creatures to which poetry