Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/437

 BEAN GOOSE BEAR 417 by these beans." Pythagoras urged abstinence from beans, and the Egyptian priests considered the sight even of beans to be unclean. The name bean is also applied to the fruit, berry, or product of such plants as the castor, coffee tree, tamarind, vanilla vine, and some others. BEAK GOOSE. See GOOSE. BEAR (ursua). "The family of bears are classed," says Robert Mudie in his "Glean- ings from Nature," "among those carnivorous animals which are plantigrade, or walk upon the soles of their feet. They differ from the j more typical carnivora in many respects. In the first place, they do not confine themselves to animal food, but eat succulent vegetables, honey, and other substances which are not J animal ; in the second place, they do not kill the animals which they eat in what may be called a business-like manner, by attacking them in some vital part, but, on the contrary, hug or tear them to death ; and in the third place, those of them that inhabit the cold cli- mates, which are their appropriate places of residence, often hibernate during the winter, or some part of it, which is never done by the characteristic carnivora. There are bears in almost all latitudes, from the equator to the pole; but those which inhabit the warmer lat- itudes are tame and feeble as compared with the natives of the cooler ones, and therefore we must regard them as being, in their proper home and locality, animals of the colder regions of the globe. The whole genus has in fact a polar rather than an equatorial character, and ! may thus be considered as geographically the reverse of the more formidable of the strictly carnivorous animals the lion and tiger in the eastern, and the jaguar in the western hemi- sphere. These are all tropical in their homes, habitually ardent in their temperaments, and, though they can endure hunger for considerable periods, they feed all the year round, and thus have no season of repose. The bears, again, arc seasonable animals, retiring during the winter, and coming abroad in the spring. But it is not from the storm that the bears retire ; it is from the cold serenity the almost total cessation of atmospheric as well as of living action which reigns during the polar winter ; the storm is ! both seedtime and harvest to the bears. Dur- ing its utmost fury they range the wilds and forests, accompanied by the more powerful owls and hawks, which, like the bears, are equally remarkable for their strength and their impene- trable covering. At those times many of the smaller animals are dashed lifeless to the earth by the storm, or shrouded in the snow, and upon these the bears make an abundant supper a supper of days, and even of weeks before they retire to their long rest. So also, when the storm begins to break, they find a plentiful col- lection of the carcasses of such animals as have perished in the snow, and been concealed from sight and preserved from putrefaction under it." The polar bear (U. maritimm) is the largest, strongest, most powerful, and, with a ; single exception, the most ferocious of bears. Its distinguishing characteristics are the great length of its body as compared with its height ; the length of the neck ; the smallness of the ex- ternal ears ; the large size of the soles of the feet ; the fineness and length of the hair ; the straightness of the line of the forehead and the nose ; the narrowness of its head, and the expansion of its muzzle. It is invariably of a dingy white hue. The size varies considerably. Capt. Lyon mentions one 8 ft. 7 in. long, weigh- ing 1,500 Ibs. The domestic habits of these powerful animals are not much understood, and whether they hibernate or not is not very well ascertained, although it is believed that the male at least is not dormant so long as the land bears of the north. The admirable work of Dr. Kane seems to place it in doubt whether either sex absolutely hibernates, as we find she bears with their cubs visiting his winter quarters during the midnight darkness. The pairing season is understood to be in July and August ; and the attachment of the pair is Polar or White Bear (Ursus maritlmus). such, that if one is killed the other remains fondling the dead body, and will suffer itself to be killed rather than leave it. The same wonderful affection of the female for her cubs has been noticed, from which neither wounds nor death will divide her ; and all the arctic navigators, from Dr. Scoresby to Dr. Kane, have recorded their sympathy with and regret for the poor savage mothers, vainly endeavor- ing to persuade their dead cubs to arise and ac- company them, or to eat the food which they will not themselves touch, although starving. The habits of the polar bear are purely maritime ; and although their system of dentition is the same with that of the other bears, their food, from necessity, is wholly animal. The polar bear is comparatively rare in menageries, as it suffers so much from the heat, even of our winters, and from the want of water, that it is not easily preserved in confinement. The next bear in all respects to the polar species, and superior to him in ferocity and tenacity of life, is the grisly bear (U. horribilu) of America. This powerful animal, which is to the Ameri- can fauna what the Bengal tiger is to that of