| Show TWO QUEER CREATURES habits and peculiarities of the bat and the chate species of featherless animal that can fly exists in all the world and it is one that you probably have often seen properly speaking it has no wings nevertheless its flying appun is more nearly perfect than that ot any bird it flies with wonderful rapidity darts about with such difficult for the eye to follow it and its sense of touch and smell are something marvelous in watching its rapid and eccentric flig nl in the twilight you have no doubt animal isa bird but like appearance ends with its ability to fly its young are born and nurtured just as are puppies and kittens this strange flying animal is says a writer in the philadelphia times in one of cE sops fables it iho beasts and the birds once engaged in battle and the bat hovered above changing from one side to the other as the chances of victory changed for this treachery the bat was doomed to the queer life he now leads that of an apparent bird but a real mammalian 1 1 animal the structure of the bat is very peculiar an eminent naturalist says if the fingers of a man were to be drawn out like wire to about four feet in length a thin membrane to extend from finger to finger and another membrane to fall from the little finger to the ankles he would make a very tolerable bat yes the whole skeleton of the bata is very similar to that of man with the exception of the great elongation of what we may call the arms and bands when cousee the bat darting about in the evening ho is taking his supper he lives as the swallow does on insects in the air and although his sight is very poor hib touch and smell are so sensitive that ho has no difficulty in catching his prey even when flying so very basl when cold weather comes on the bat ceases to fly about in search of food he need to he seeks a well behel where he is not likely to be disturbed and quietly takes a nap till next spring somewhat analogous to the bat the mammalian of the air is the whale the mammalian of the sea the whale is no moie a ash than the bat is a bird its young are born like the kittens and the puppies but only one at a time i young whale takes its nourishment at its mother s breast just as the human baby does and it is just as carefully watched and guarded by its parents although whales grow to enormous size sometimes eighty and even ninety feet long tho throat is so small that the animal swallow a bite as large as d tea biscuit this applies to tho common whale the spermaceti has ar mouth largo enough to swallow a man the whalebone that the dressmakers dress makers and others findo useful is what may bo called the jaw of the common whale it has no teeth and it lives on anima cules little animals that float in great numbers on the surface of the water the is used as a sieve through which tho food is strained therefore the whale that kindly took jonah in out of the cef must have been a spermaceti which has a bin throat and jaws with about one hundred teeth in each |
