THIS animal, beyond all others with which we are acquainted, is a being of strange associations. The imaginations of men, whether nurtured by superstition or fired by poetry, have alike contributed to invest Bats with unnatural qualities. Thus Homer finds in them a comparison, as he traces the movements of departed spirits :

"As when the bats within some hallow'd cave

Flit, squeaking all around; for if but one

Fall from the rock, the rest all follow him,
In such connection mutual they adhere;

So, after bounteous Mercury, the ghosts
Trooped downward, gibberingt on the dreary way."

When Caliban denounces Prospero, he exclaims :

"All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!"

Macbeth, too, thus intimates his direful purpose to his "dearest chuck:”—

"Ere the bat hath flown

His cloister'd flight; ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,

Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note."

And in a subsequent scene in the tragedy of Macbeth, where a dark cave appears, with a cauldron boiling in the centre, and the witches engaged in their orgies, one of them mentions an ingredient

• Cheiroptera, from two Greek words, meaning "a hand" and "a wing."

"The ghosts

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."-Shakespeare.

obtained from the creature now under consideration, as essential to the charm they were working:

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"Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog."

Ages elapsed before even naturalists could divest themselves of the superstitions that clustered around this tribe of the animal kingdom. Still further effort was required to examine their actual structure, and assign them an appropriate place. The first grave conclusion was that Bats were birds, then they were described as aves non aves," that is, "birds and not birds ;" and only at the close of the seventeenth century it was decidedly declared that they are "viviparous quadrupeds." Here, however, we have a combination of fact and fiction; for though it is true that Bats are viviparous, not hatching their young as birds do from the egg, but producing them as living beings, in no sense whatever can they be accurately classed as quadrupeds. The dog, the lion, the tiger, the elephant, and innumerable other animals are manifestly four-footed, but no Bat was ever yet found that was thus endowed, or could walk as they do.

In saying this we rest on their known structure in past ages, as well as on that which each one of our readers may observe for personal satisfaction, of which the following is a remarkable proof. Gypsum quarries are spread over the flanks of Montmartre, which were long known to afford fossil bones; and innumerable fragments of them had, by slow degrees, filled the cabinets of Paris, but no one appears to have suspected the mine of wonders which these rocks contained.

Having gradually ascertained that there were numerous species belonging to many genera, "I at length found myself," says Cuvier, "as if placed in a charnel-house, surrounded by mutilated fragments of many hundred skeletons of more than twenty kinds of animals, piled confusedly around me. task assigned me was to restore them all to their original position.

The

"At the voice of comparative anatomy, every bone and fragment of a bone resumed its place. I cannot find words to express the pleasure I experienced in secing, as I discovered one character, how all the consequences which I predicted from it were successively confirmed; the feet were found in accordance with the characters announced by the teeth; the teeth in harmony with those indicated beforehand by the feet; the bones of the legs and thighs, and every connecting portion of the extremities, were found set together precisely as I had arranged them, before my conjectures were verified by the discovery of the parts entire; in short, each species was, as it were, reconstructed from a single one of its component elements."

We may estimate the number of the animals collected in the gypsum of Montmartre, from the fact stated by Cuvier, that scarcely a block is taken from these quarries, which does not disclose some fragment of a fossil skeleton, though millions must have been destroyed before attention was awakened to the subject.

We give an engraving of one of these blocks, containing a part of the skeleton of a Bat. Here may be observed the lower jaw and the principal part of the teeth, some of the vertebræ, the two collar bones, the two arms, and the two fore-arms almost entire. To this species was given a name,* derived from the site of its discovery, while it contributed to establish the accuracy of the principles which guided Cuvier throughout his interesting inquiry. The last found fragments confirmed the conclusions he had drawn from those first brought to light, his retrograde steps being as nothing in comparison with his predictions which were "Discoveries thus conducted, demonstrate," as Dr. Buckland remarks, "the constancy of

verified.

the laws of co-existence that have ever pervaded all animated nature, and place these extinct genera in close connection with the living orders of mammalia." It is still further remarkable that remains of the oldest Bats occur in the Eocene* of the Paris basin, and that they are there associated with the bones of dolphins and morses. The bones of Bats of existing species have also been found in the cavities of the gypsum at Köstritz, a locality south-west of Leipsic, in the valley of the Elster, mixed with bones of extinct animals, and the remains of existing species.

The Bat tribes, of which naturalists form an order, comprehend several distinct families, and a great number of genera and species. They vary greatly in size, from that of the smallest mouse, to the enormous dimensions of the Kalong, found in the island of Java, hereafter to be described. The larger ones are limited to the torrid zone; the smaller are widely distributed.

In Australia, where, we are told, the stones of the cherries grow without, and not within the fruit, where the small end of the pear instead of the large tends downwards, and where other singularities appear in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, few Bats are found. In other instances, their geographical distribution is almost as regular as that of the larger animals. Some are wanting in America, and may be found in diverse countries of the Old World. None appear in Europe which have been discovered in New Holland. The Vampire Bats, and others more or less analogous, are exclusively American. Other kinds have their representatives in many countries; such are those of the genus Molossus and the Vespertilions, which yield species to the Old World and the New also. The latter genus is chiefly remarkable for the wide dispersion of its species.

We shall now proceed to contemplate the most remarkable of these creatures, in various regions of the globe; nor can we fail to discover much that is exceedingly interesting in their structure and habits. We begin with a Family† having various members, with some of whom we are most likely to form a personal acquaintance, while others are only to be found in distant regions of the earth.

Bats are generally remarkable for the structure of the nose, of which this family, like others yet to be considered, supplies many examples. Here the nose disc is expanded into a leaf behind, and has a double lobe in front of the nostrils. Varieties appear, however, in the several genera of this family, of which we give an instance in Commerson's Bat (p. 156). The anterior portion of the nose, usually bearing a fancied resemblance to a horse-shoe, surrounds the nostrils, and stretches upwards to the base of the posterior expansion, which is furnished with lateral lobes. It has been conjectured that this curious apparatus is intended for closing the nostrils when they are not in

The geological term, Eocene, indicates that period in the history of our globe, when the dawn of recent species of animals is discernible.

+ Rhinolophus.

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use, or that it forms an extension of the organ of smell; but it seems much more probable that the delicate and bare skin of which it consists affords a peculiar localisation to the sense of touch, doubtless rendered necessary by the habits of these animals. Their ears are largely developed.

THE GREATER HORSE-SIIOE BAT.*

THIS animal has the head of an oblong form, the upper part rounded. The nostrils have the curious appendage mentioned above, whence the scientific name Rhinolophus-"with a crest on the nose," or Horse-Shoe Bat, from the shape of the crest. The fur, which is long and soft, is reddish-gray above, pale-gray beneath, and the ears pale-brown. The entire length of the animal is two inches and five lines, that of the head being eleven lines; of the body an inch and six lines; of the tail an inch and a quarter. The expansion of the wing is thirteen inches.

Dr. Latham was the first who discovered this bat in England. Montague observed it, together with the smaller species, in the cavern called "Kent's Hole," near Torquay; and it has been procured in various caverns in the south of England, as well as in Rochester and Bristol Cathedrals.

As, however, in the air bats pass the active portion of their existence, and revel in the exercise of their peculiar endowments, their organs of flight are in harmony with their habits. In a bird, the wing which is, in fact, its arm-consists, as in man, of the true-arm, the fore-arm, and the hand. The hand, however, so far from being flexible, as the name suggests, is a firm, inflexible basis for a series of stiff elastic feathers, continuous with those proceeding from the arm. On the anterior edge is seated the thumb-bone, a single-jointed piece. The fingers are two; the first consists of two phalanges, a broad basal bone, as if several were compacted into one, and a small, pointed bone. The second finger consists merely of a small portion in close contact with the first phalanx of the first finger.

The organisation of bats is very different. Their organs of flight consist not of stiff feathers, disposed in order, and based upon the bones of the fore-arm, but of a large thin membrane, stretched over and between the limbs, to which the bones act as stretchers, like the strips of whalebone or steel rods in an umbrella; the tail, in many species, assisting also.

This membrane has its origin in the sides of the neck, and reaches all along the body to the extremities of the hinder legs, which it encloses in its folds. Thus, not only is the surface by which it acts on the air sufficiently extensive, but the muscular power by which its motions are effected is adequate to give it those quick and sudden impulses which are requisite for flying; and thus, although its structure is different from that of birds, it yet performs fully the office of a real wing. The bat, although not made to continue very long on the wing, flies with perfect ease, even while carrying along with it one or two of its young.

The wing of the bat has often been spoken of as a callous membrane, insensible as the leather of a glove or a shoe, but nothing can be further from the truth. Were one to select an organ of the most exquisite delicacy and sensibility, it would be the bat's wing; as an organ of touch, it has rarely been equalled, and perhaps never surpassed.

Spallanzani had observed that bats could fly with great certainty in rooms, however dark, without striking against the walls. He found that when their eyes were covered, they could fly with as much precision as before; and even when he put out their eyes, no error in this respect was observed. When branches of trees or threads were suspended from the ceiling, the bats avoided them, nor did they even brush the threads as they flew past or between them; and even when the space between was too small to admit their expanded wings, they contracted their pinions so as to suit their dimensions to the breadth of the passage. Spallanzani thought that the bat must possess a sixth sense. The organs of vision had been cruelly destroyed, and therefore it could not be by sight that they avoided all obstacles. In many bats the ears were stopped, so that it could not be by hearing. In others, the nostrils were stopped, so that it could not be by smelling. As to taste, it was out of the question.

Cuvier was of opinion that the phenomenon was accounted for by the acuteness of the sensation of touch in the wing, and not by an additional sense. It is not a wing intended merely for flight, but one which, while it raises the bat, is capable of receiving a new sensation or sensations in so exquisite a degree as almost to constitute a new sense. On the fine web of the wing, which presents an

* Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum. Leach.

enormous surface to the air, nerves are distributed, which enable the bat to avoid objects in its flight during the obscurity of night, when both eyes and ears fail. It is probable that the air when struck by this wing, or very sensible hand, in the action of flight, produces a sensation of heat, cold, or resistance to that organ. The writer has had many opportunities of observing blind boys and young men especially, when engaged in walking considerable distances. It is their practice when in any doubt as to their path to stop, and their attitude is then that of listening. The power of hearing, in such circumstances, is often exceedingly acute. Mr. Jesse says, "A blind boy of the name of Fitzgerald, who is now the organist of Hampton Court Chapel, caught fish in a temporary pond at Hampton, with his hands. He said he was enabled to do this 'by hearing them move!" In the stoppages of the blind in their walks, and their consequent judgment of their right course, they are, doubtless, aided by the action of the air. A blind horse driven in a gig, when brought up suddenly, as he often was, by way of experiment, against a closed gate through which he had probably never before passed, always stopped short, and could never be forced against it. It was supposed that he perceived there was some immediate intervening object which obstructed that current of air of which he had previously

been conscious. And certain it is that the modified impressions which the air in quiescence, or in motion, however slight, communicates-the tremulous jar of the faintest current-the indescribable condition of such strata as are in contact with different bodies, are all appreciated by the bat.

Of this flying membrane, the bones of the arms and hands are the principal supporters and levers of motion-we say hands, because though not graspers, as such they must be considered. All these bones, those of the carpus excepted, are slender and remarkably lengthened. The bones of the fingers are very slender, and of extraordinary length, diverging from each other as they proceed. They are, however, moveable, and are not only capable of closing together, but of being folded down in contact

with the forearm.

The true finger bones carry on the elongation of this framework, and taper to a point, like the extremity of an angling-rod, but unfurnished with nails or claws. These fingers are essential not only for duly expanding the wing, but for keeping its margins stretched out, and for folding it down when requisite. In some genera the first finger consists but of one very fine bone; the second finger consists of three; occasionally the first finger is tipped with a very small hook-like nail. The thumb is free, and usually short, consisting of three bones, the last of which is armed with a strong hooked claw. Such, then, is the hand of the bat, essentially an apparatus for flight. Thus designed and constructed