It is the only mammal that flies. III.—WHAT THE BAT DOES. Let no one say that it lives a useless life. It is one of the most useful animals we have. It vies with the swallow in destroying the swarms of insects that infest the atmosphere. They divide the day of twenty-four hours between them. The bat begins the work where the swallow lays it down; and ruthlessly pursues the insect prey all through the night. From dark to dawn, and sometimes far into the day, it does yeoman service in this important connection. The present writer remembers a pair of bats in Perthshire, which were found in company with the swallows even at the hour of noon. It was the month of September, and perhaps they felt they must now make haste in preparing for the winter’s hibernation. For the bat is not able, like the swallow, to migrate to a warmer clime when the supply of insect food begins to fail. It must find another way of spending the long months of the winter. It must pass into a deep death-like slumber, from which it is awakened, as the flowers in spring are awakened, by the returning life of the summer. But the traces of a wise design are seen everywhere. The marks of a good and faithful Creator are found through all His works. If one creature has the power of migrating, another has the power of hibernating; and thus even in the mode of existence pursued by a bat, there is abundant evidence of the wisdom and goodness of God. And how is the bat able to thread its way through the darkest caverns where the sharpest eyes are rendered useless? It is not blind, like Tibbie Dyster in "Alec Forbes"; and yet it might say, as she did when congratulated on her fine spinning, "I wadna spin sae weel gin it warna that the Almichty pat some sicht into the pints o’ my fingers ’cause there was nane left i’ my een." The bat has indeed a marvellous power of sight in "the pints o’ its fingers." Prof. Mivart can only compare the sensitiveness of its _touch_ to a state of inflammation; and it is this extreme sensibility that enables them to direct their flight in these dark caverns. This is another coign of vantage reached by the bat. It is the only mammal that possesses wings, and these wings, in turn, are the very perfection of the delicate sense of touch.