Talking about sleeping, I must not forget to tell you that a bat is like a
dormouse in one respect: it does not fly away to a warm, country when the
cold is coming, and the insects are getting scarce, but goes off to sleep
in a barn, or belfry, or cave, and sleeps on all through the winter,
needing neither food nor drink. 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; also in
Isaiah ii. we read that in that day when the Lord alone shall be exalted,
"a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold ... to the
moles and to the bats"--for they especially haunt waste and desolate
places.
Now we must leave the Four-handed family, and come to the largest class
among the Mammalia--the Quadrupeds. As all four-footed animals, no matter
how unlike each other they may be in other respects, belong to this family,
you may imagine what a very large one it must be. Naturalists have divided
the Quadrupeds into different classes, and at the head of them they place
the Carnivora, or flesh-eaters, so called because they are beasts of prey,
catching birds and smaller animals alive, and eating them.
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