And yet one cannot but think that all this was rather hard on the bat. "It is said that the African negroes depict and describe _their_ evil spirits as white; and that in consequence, the negro children fly in consternation if perchance a white man comes into their territory. Yet a white man is not so very horrid an object after all, if one only dare look at him, and the same remark holds good with the bats." (J. G. Wood.) A very pretty and useful creature is the bat, and it is quite qualified to teach us many valuable lessons. II.—WHAT A BAT IS. How are we to describe this little puzzle? Are we to call it a bird or a beast, or is it both of these rolled into one? The possession of wings would seem to argue that it must be a bird; but then its sharp teeth and mouse-like body would as clearly prove that it must be a beast; so that the simple question whether the bat is a bird or beast is not so simple as it looks. The common name, "_Flitter-mouse_," exhibits the same difficulty; and so also does Æsop in his amusing description of the battle of the beasts and birds. The bat, availing himself of his combination of fur and wings, did not join himself to either party. He hovered over the field of battle, and waited to see which side was going to be victorious. He was determined in the final issue to be on the side of the victors. But in this little game he was entirely unsuccessful; for when they saw the tactics of the little traitor, he was scouted by both parties, and has been compelled ever since to appear in public only at night. It is quite evident that when Æsop wrote this fable, he was not sure what to call the bat—whether to describe it as a bird because it had wings, or to place it among the beasts because it had fur. But what then is the tiny creature? A mammal, of course. A whale is not a fish because it swims in the sea, and the bat is not a bird because it flies in the air. They both suckle their young, and therefore are true mammals. Nay, Linnæus has actually placed the bat in the highest order of the mammals—in that of the primates beside the monkey and the man. Indeed, in one essential particular it has easily excelled both. It has grown for itself a pair of wings—not a mere parachute like that of the flying squirrels or the flying fish, but a real pair of wings which enable it to laugh to scorn all the flying machines and balloons ever invented by man. How clumsy all these inventions are in comparison with a bat’s wing. Four of its fingers are drawn out like the ribs of an umbrella, and then covered over with its own skin like the web of a duck’s foot; and thus furnished with the necessary means of competing with the birds, it sails out like the swallow in pursuit of its prey. The remaining finger or thumb is used as a hook to suspend it from the roof or rafters where it takes up its abode. Here then is the high position to which the bat has attained.