Bat

“ Bat herself, and if you could only have peeped beneath one of her wings you might have seen the dearest little mite of a bat, with eyes of jet, clinging close to its mother's breast as she folded it tenderly beneath her wing. There the helpless little creature stayed, close to its mother, until it became older and stronger, for among all the tiny, fur-bearing animals there is no little mother more considerate of her young than the bat. ”

“ Of course the two ridiculous fur balls were just the bat family. The smaller, more timorous bat, soon followed her mate from behind the web curtain and joined him upon the broad beam. But so clumsy and half awake was she that the very first thing she did was to make a misstep and go pitching off the high beam into space. She landed upon the hay, fortunately, and then began the funniest sight. Did you ever chance to see a bat when it attempted to walk? They seldom use their feet, and when they do it is a droll sight. ”

“ We fully enjoyed the rural privilege, and the old clock in the corner had rung out its warning many times unheeded, when our games were broken up, as far as the ladies were concerned, by the entrance of a bat, for there are few things they are more genuinely afraid of than a little leather-wing. Like the eyes of a well executed portrait, the bat seems to follow you wherever you crouch in the room, and dips with regular precision and nicety of distance at your head, however low you bow it. ”

“ No sooner had the poor man heard the name bat, which recalled the humour he was suffering under, than he cried out at the top of his voice: "He says true—he says true; the bat's the thing—the bat's the thing!" ”

“ Before the dim shadows began to lift, the bats and owls had returned usually, but the bat family did not retire again behind their cobweb curtain; instead they hung themselves by their wing-claws head downward from the beam, folding their wings closely over their beady eyes, and thus they would sleep all day. ”

“ The hands of a bat are hands still, and, though the fingers are hampered by their awkward gloves, the thumbs are free. The giant fruit bats of the tropics clamber about the trees quite acrobatically with their thumbs and feet. ”

“ The bat has shunned the light so long through so many bat-generations that it has become blind, but it has remarkable ears, and nature has grown for it an abnormal sense of touch, and a peculiar sensitiveness even where there is no contact, so that it avoids obstacles in flying with a skill that seems uncanny, incredulous. ”

“ We were all sitting in the parlor one evening last summer when in flew a creature through the open window. Bump—bump, he went against the wall and ceiling.
“A bat! a bat!” shrieked aunt Mary, and ran behind the door. Mamma jumped up into a chair and gathered her skirts about her, just as though it were a mouse. Grace and Mabel ran out of the Room, while papa and Frank and Kate chased the bat.
The poor little bat fluttered about, and almost fell into the kerosene lamp chimney. Then he got entangled in the window draperies. You know a bat cannot see by a light any more than an owl can. ”

“ Do you know that frayed sparrow that comes and sits on your window ledge and waits for some one? Do you know that lightness that steals over your heart of a morning when you seat yourself at your desk amid the smell of dusty lawbooks? Well, there comes a time when the breeze and the sparrow and the leap of the heart unite to tell you that something is happening to old Mother Earth—and at the same time something happened to Bat. ”

“ Harvey. "Such tales were long believed, even by writers on natural history; and I have some where a picture of a monstrous bat sucking the blood from a man's veins. But all this is now known to be fabulous. No kind of bat will attack an animal as large as itself, nor enter a house when there is an abundance of fruit and insects in the field."
"Shall we let this bat go now?" said John. ”

“ From its habit of hiding, its night-flying, its uncouth motion, its mouse-like body and unfeathered wings, which are so unhandsome that artists have copied them when they wish to show demons, witches, dragons, harpies, and evil angels with wings, the poor bat has derived its unlucky reputation, and the general dislike with which it is regarded. In truth, there is scarcely any creature so frail, defenceless, harmless, friendly, gentle, and timid as a bat. ”

“ The squeak made by the bat is so very fine, that while to some ears it is loud, by others it cannot be heard. I once, when a boy, was exploring a hollow tree after owls' nests, when the smell from one particular hole was so dreadful that we put some lighted paper down to see what would come out; and to our astonishment dozens of large, reddish bats flew out, and dashed madly about in the bright sunlight. The bat has more vermin upon it than any other creature of its size. It seems needless to state that the bat is an animal, and not a bird or an insect ”

“ In the contact between mankind and bats, man, the invariable aggressor, finds the bats baring their teeth, biting viciously, squeaking, and behaving altogether like little fiends. A gentler side is sometimes exhibited, however, and one observer who caught a partly grown red bat found that it became tame, showed intelligence, and developed a friendly feeling for its captor. ”

“ But the bat is as useful a creature as the swallow, and in the very same way; for, when the evening comes on, and the swallow retires to its nest, the bat issues from its home and takes up the work just where the swallow leaves it—the two creatures dividing the day and night between them. Therefore, let those who refrain from swallow shooting include the bat in their free list.
Some there are whom nothing can restrain from [6] killing, for the instinct of slaughter is strong in them. With them nothing is valuable unless it is to be killed. ”

“ As the creature moves about, the ears are continually in motion, being thrown into graceful and ever-changing curves. If people only knew what a pretty pet the long-eared bat can become, they would soon banish dormice and similar creatures in favour of bats.
It was rather a remarkable circumstance, that the bat of which I have just been speaking would not touch a fly, although one which I had in my possession some ten years since would eat flies and other insects readily. Whenever it took the insect, it daintily ate up the abdomen and thorax, rejecting the head, wings, and legs. ”

“ Yes, the bat is a hunter, an eater of live prey, a little ogre always demanding fresh meat. It only remains to find out the kind of game it likes. Evidently the size of the prey must suit the size of the hunter. A bat’s head is no bigger than a large hazelnut. It is true the mouth is split from ear to ear and can, when wide open, swallow mouthfuls larger than the smallness of the animal would lead one to suppose. Nevertheless the bat can attack only small creatures. What can it be that it goes chasing through the air when, after sunset, it flies hither and thither unceasingly? ”

“ The lemurs, flying squirrels, and a few other animals have extensions of the skin mantle-wise along the body and legs, to bear them up for a little in the air, as they make long leaps; but they do not really fly. The bat, on the contrary, has good wings, and flies. The bat reminds us a little of that winged reptile which was in the ancient world long before men appeared on the earth. That was a reptile with a large, skin-like wing; a bat is a mammal with two skin-covered wings. ”

“ For of all things a bat dreads the light when beasts of prey are abroad, and next to that he fears any position near the ground where weasels, wild cats, or other flesh-eating animals may seize him in his sleep. Nay, the smaller bats live in constant fear of the larger ones, for they feed upon one another with evident relish. ”

“ The Bat, Phyllorhina gracilis (fig. 17) , flies with a very slight increase of surface. The surface exposed by the bat exceeds that displayed by many insects and birds. The wings of the bat are deeply concave, and so resemble the wings of beetles and heavy-bodied short-winged birds. The bones of the arm (r) , forearm (d) , and hand (n, n, n) of the bat (fig. 17) support the anterior or thick margin and the extremity of the wing, and may not inaptly be compared to the nervures in corresponding positions in the wing of the beetle.—Original. ”

“ The mother bat has seldom more than one young one at a time, and this is born early in the spring, before the bats begin to fly abroad. The baby bat is smaller than a small bean, is blind and hairless. ”

“ All who have ever examined a bat closely, and observed its fur, ears, and teeth, must, I think, have recognized it as a kind of beast. Its real affinities, however, serve excellently well to demonstrate how little mere external aspect can be trusted as a guide to fundamental relationship. ”

“ To him however that feels the same disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel, start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and warfare against his. ”

“ In Lev. xi. 20, the words, "All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you," are evidently intended to apply to the bat, which, as is now well known, is not a bird with wings, but a mammal with very long toes, and a well developed membrane between them. Like other mammals, the Bat crawls, or walks, on all four legs, though the movement is but a clumsy one, and greatly different from the graceful ease with which the creature urges its course through the evening air in search of food.
12 Perhaps the prohibition to eat so unsightly an animal may seem almost needless ”

“ The seals and walruses, however, which are carnivores adapted to living in water, have no such clipping teeth.
Fig. 171.—Skull of Wolf, seen from left side.
49. THE BAT.
1. Habits.—At what time of the year have you seen bats flying about? Do they fly in broad daylight, or only in the evening? How can you distinguish a bat’s flight from that of a bird? Have you ever heard a bat squeak? Upon what does it feed? Are flying insects plentiful in winter? Have you ever seen a bat drink? How does it drink? What does the bat do in winter? ”

“ The sun was set; the night came on a-pace, 115
And falling dews bewet around the place,
The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings,
And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings; ”

“ If you could take a bat in your hand, and look at it from head to foot, you would notice three things very unlike a bird about it. In the first place, it has no feathers, but is covered with very soft grey fur; it has no beak, but sharp teeth—so sharp that I advise you to keep your fingers out of their way; then, look at its long ears! It certainly cannot be a bird.
Besides being reckoned among the four-handed creatures, a Greek name has been given to bats, from the curious way in which their fore paws, or hands, have been lengthened out into wings ”

“ A bat, measuring about one foot from the tip of one wing to that of the other, was let loose in the room when it was quite dark, "and it was distinctly heard flying about all over the room, but never once did it touch a string or stop flying. ”

“ Perhaps one element of distrust of the bat family arises from their apparent non-conformity to either of the common animal types. The bat seems to be either a bird with hair and teeth, bringing forth its young alive, or a mammal with wings, and the general aspect and habit of a bird. ”

“ A hoary bat, the largest of all the family, has been seen to overtake and fly past a flock of migrating swallows, while a red bat has been watched carrying four young clinging to her, which together weighed more than she did, and yet she flew and hunted and captured insects in mid-air as usual. There is no bird which can give such an exhibition of strong flying. ”

“ There are many different kinds of bats about which you can read in Natural History books; one kind eats fruit, not insects. The bat is about the size of a mouse, and feeds its young, as the mouse does, with milk. When we were speaking of the animals mentioned in the Bible no one thought of the bat; but it is referred to among the birds or winged things, which might not be eaten by the Israelites ”

“ No, answers science, the stars are not tiny sparks; they are enormous bodies which compare in light and size to the sun itself, a million and a half times as large as the earth. The bat, it is commonly asserted, is a harmful, hideous, venomous creature of ill omen that must be crushed without mercy under the heel. ”

“ The bat is strangely like man, and like primates in general: five fingers to the hand, one a thumb, five fingers on the foot, pectoral teats, mensual flux, free penis; it is a little caricature of man, abrupt and frightened in its evening flight about houses. ”

“ As in the case of the sleeping butterfly, carry one of the bats to your warm room and place him in a bird-cage, hanging him up on the top wires 50 by his toes, with his head downward. The inverted position of these strange little beings always brings to mind some of the experiences of Gulliver, and indeed the life of a bat is more wonderful than any fairy tale. ”

“ We may as well state at once that a bat is really a mammal; that is, it agrees with moles, rats, sheep, horses, cats, monkeys, and men, in bringing forth its young alive, and nursing them by milk; in having red blood-corpuscles, which contain no nucleus; in being clothed with hair; and in possessing a corpus callosum, that is, a band of fibres connecting the two cerebral hemispheres.
There are other anatomical features which link the bats closely with the moles and shrews and hedge-hogs. Indeed, the bat might be described as a flying mole, or the mole as a burrowing bat. ”

“ The blood of the bat may be derived from an Oriental belief that the bat being the most perfect of birds, because it has breasts and suckles its young, it is specially adapted to magical uses. In the Tyrol he who bears the left eye of a bat may become invisible, and in Hesse he who wears the heart of a bat bound to his arm with red thread will always win at cards. The manes of the horses which have been tangled and twisted by the Chagrin must not be cut off or disentangled unless these words are spoken:— [93] ”