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; it means "hand-winged."
Now, keeping this name in mind, gently unfold the wing: the small bones
which you feel, over which the soft grey web is stretched, are really the
fingers of the animal, very long fingers they are, and the web is the skin
of the back and breast which has been drawn over them, so as to make this
strange hand-wing. If you cannot examine a live bat, perhaps by studying
this picture of one, you may understand better how this soft, dusky wing is
made.
[Illustration: "FLITTER-MOUSE" ON THE WING.]
The bat is what is called a nocturnal animal, because it cannot bear the
strong light of day, and flies about at night in search of its food. We
sometimes hear it said that a person is "as blind as a bat," but that is
because when bats are taken, contrary to their nature, into the sunlight,
they are so dazzled by it, that they fly blunderingly hither and thither,
in their efforts to get away from it. They have very sharp eyes, but they
do not use them by day, but sleep all day long, hitched to a stone in a
wall, or to a branch in the woods by their hind legs--always choosing a
dark place, and folding their wings around them like a curtain.
I remember being very much afraid of bats when I was a child.
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