עטלף, Lev. xi, 19; Deut. xiv, 18; Isaiah ii, 20; Baruch vi, 22. The
Jewish legislator, having enumerated the animals legally unclean, as
well beasts as birds, closes his catalogue with a creature whose
equivocal properties seem to exclude it from both those classes: it is
too much a bird to be properly a mouse, and too much a mouse to be
properly a bird. The bat is therefore well described in Deut. xiv, 18,
19, as the passage should be read, “Moreover the _othelaph_, and _every
creeping thing that flieth_, is unclean to you: they shall not be
eaten.” This character is very descriptive, and places this creature at
the head of a class of which he is a clear and well-known instance. It
has feet or claws growing out of its pinions, and contradicts the
general order of nature, by creeping with the instruments of its flight.
The Hebrew name of the bat is from עטל _darkness_, and עמ _to fly_, as
if it described “the flier in darkness.” So the Greeks called the
creature νυκτερὶς, from νὺξ, _night_; and the Latins, _vespertilio_,
from _vesper_, “evening.” It is prophesied, Isaiah ii, 20, “In that day
shall they cast away their idols to the moles and to the bats;” that is,
they shall carry them into the dark caverns, old ruins, or desolate
places, to which they shall fly for refuge, and so shall give them up,
and relinquish them to the filthy animals that frequent such places, and
have taken possession of them as their proper habitation.
Jewish legislator, having enumerated the animals legally unclean, as
well beasts as birds, closes his catalogue with a creature whose
equivocal properties seem to exclude it from both those classes: it is
too much a bird to be properly a mouse, and too much a mouse to be
properly a bird. The bat is therefore well described in Deut. xiv, 18,
19, as the passage should be read, “Moreover the _othelaph_, and _every
creeping thing that flieth_, is unclean to you: they shall not be
eaten.” This character is very descriptive, and places this creature at
the head of a class of which he is a clear and well-known instance. It
has feet or claws growing out of its pinions, and contradicts the
general order of nature, by creeping with the instruments of its flight.
The Hebrew name of the bat is from עטל _darkness_, and עמ _to fly_, as
if it described “the flier in darkness.” So the Greeks called the
creature νυκτερὶς, from νὺξ, _night_; and the Latins, _vespertilio_,
from _vesper_, “evening.” It is prophesied, Isaiah ii, 20, “In that day
shall they cast away their idols to the moles and to the bats;” that is,
they shall carry them into the dark caverns, old ruins, or desolate
places, to which they shall fly for refuge, and so shall give them up,
and relinquish them to the filthy animals that frequent such places, and
have taken possession of them as their proper habitation.