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. 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.
But we go back to the point from which we started, and say that, however useful and wonderful the bat may be, it is not to be eaten as food or offered in sacrifice. It is unclean. This, indeed, is a principle which is full of gospel teaching. A thing may be good and useful in its own place, and yet be quite unfit as an offering when we appear before God. Good thoughts, kind words, and brave deeds are all needed. They are all necessary for the adornment of our Christian character; but for the forgiveness of our sins, and the reception of "so great salvation," there is no sacrifice which can be mentioned save one: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." To Jesus then must every boy and girl look, saying in the language of the hymn—
"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come."
The Eagle.