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 AEsop 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 AEsop 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,
Linnaeus 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.