Bats are in general very much averse to the ground, and never voluntarily place themselves on a level surface. Their method of walking is very curious. First the forelegs or wings are thrust forward, hooking the claw at its extremity over any convenient projection, or burying it in the ground. By means of this hold the animals draw themselves forward, then raising their bodies partly off the earth advance the hind-leg, making at the same time a tumble forward. The process is then repeated on the opposite side, and thus they proceed in a strange and unearthly fashion, tumbling and staggering along as if their brains were reeling.
It has long been known that Bats are able to thread their way among boughs of trees and other impediments with an ease that seems almost beyond the power of sight. Even utter darkness does not apparently impede their progress, for when shut up in a darkened room, in which strings had been stretched in various directions, they still pursued their course through the air, avoiding every obstacle with precision. This faculty has been found not to result from any unusual keenness of sight, but from the exquisite nervous system of their wings.
THE OTTER.
NATURE, children, as you observe, gave my family a handsome coat. Now no bird can have fine feathers, nor beast a fine fur but men and women desire them for adornment, or possibly to keep themselves warm. So the hunters, finding it a paying business, shoot and trap us till places which once knew the Otter know us no more.
Such gentle animals as we are, too. No little girl or boy would care to have a more frolicsome playmate than a young cub Otter. He will romp with you, and play with Dog or Cat and sit up on his hindquarters, and whistle and do even many quaint tricks to make you laugh.
To make him happy you must have a little pond in the yard or a large tank, though he will run about the yard or house most of the time with the Dog. Feed him at first on bread and milk, then on fish, though you can train him to do without the latter and eat the "leavings" from the table.
Such fun as we Otters that live in the Northern part of the United States and Canada do have in winter. No school-boy enjoys coasting down hill more than we do. Though we live in the water, you may say, and are known as the fastest-swimming quadrupeds, yet, in spite of our short legs, we can run over land tolerably well, too. So we trudge along till we come to a high hill, well covered with snow; up we scramble to the top, lie down flat on our smooth jackets, bend our fore feet backward and, giving ourselves a shove with our hind legs, down we slide head-foremost. Such fun as it is! Not till we get hungry or too tired to jog up the hill any more do we give it up for that day.