Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/440

 420 BEAR exceed four feet in length, and has the long, slender, protrusive tongue of the species last described, fitting it especially to feed on honey, which, with fruits and vegetables, is its sole - Malayan Sun Bear (Helarctos Malayanus). food. There has always existed a doubt as to the existence of any species of bear in Africa. Pliny mentions that in the consulship of M. Piso and M. Messala, 61 B. 0., L. Domitius Aheno- barbus exhibited 100 Nuinidian bears, and as many Ethiopian hunters, in the circus ; hut at the same time he asserts that there are no bears in Africa. Herodotus, Virgil, Juvenal, and Mar- tial all speak of Libyan bears as well known animals. Ehrenberg and Forskal both speak of a black plantigrade animal called by the na- tives kawai or Jcarrae, with a long muzzle, which they both saw and hunted, but in vain. It is, however, a good rule in natural history to adopt no animal on hearsay, or until a specimen is produced. On this view it must be held that there is no African bear until one shall be produced and described ; although there is no reason why there should not be. Bear- baiting with mastiffs was formerly a favorite and even royal amusement in England ; and the readers of " Kenilwortli " will remember the characteristic scene in which Sussex is represented as pleading before Elizabeth the cause of the bear warden against the stage players, Raleigh defending the latter, and quot- ing the passage of Shakespeare personifying the queen as "a fair vestal throned in the west," on which she suffers the bear ward's petition to drop unheeded into the Thames. In the north of Europe the brown bear is hunted in the winter with snow shoes, and shot without the aid of dogs. In the west and southwest of the United States, the bear is systematically chased with packs of hounds bred for the pur- pose a cross generally of the large slow fox- hound with the mastiff; and the sport is highly exciting, and by no means devoid of danger, when Bruin turns to bay, and it becomes ne- cessary to go in with the knife, to close quar- ters, in order to save the lives of the hounds. BEARD BEAK, Great and Lesser (ursa major and minor), two constellations of the northern hemisphere. The former in the latitude of 45 N. never passes below the horizon. The most remarkable stars in it are a group of seven (marked by astronomers with the first seven letters of the Greek alphabet), which have been called the " wagon," " Charles's wain," and the " dipper." Four of them are arranged in an irregular quadrangle, constituting the body of the "dipper," while the other three are nearly in a straight line, and form the handle. Two of the stars in the body of the dipper range nearly with the north star, and are therefore called the " pointers." Mizar, in the handle, is a double star. Benetnash is a brilliant star of the first magnitude, according to some maps; in others it is set down at 1. The Lesser Bear has in it a cluster somewhat resembling the dipper in Ursa Major, but has no stars larger than the third magnitude. Nei- ther of these constellations has any resemblance to the figure of a bear, and Max Miiller is of opinion that the Greeks, by whom they were first called after that animal, applied to them the term Ap/crof (bear) by a corruption of their original Sanskrit name arkshas, "the bright stars." BEARD, the hair which grows on the chin and lower parts of the human face. That por- tion which is found on the upper lip is gener- ally distinguished as the mustache, while that upon the sides of the face is known by the name of whisker. Although the beard is ordi- narily only seen on the male adult, it appears occasionally in certain exceptional cases on the faces of women and children. Full beards were cultivated among eastern nations in early j times, and have always been regarded by them ' Egyptian pictures frequently represent the hu- man male figure, especially when of a king or dignitary, without the beard, would seem to in- dicate that it was a mark of rank in Egypt to be devoid of that appendage. In ancient India, Persia, and Assyria, however, the beard was allowed to grow long, and was always esteemed a symbol of dignity and wisdom. The Turks let the beard grow in full luxuriance, while the Persians cut and trim that upon the chin and the sides of the face, according to fashion or caprice. In Turkey it is considered an in- famy to have the beard cut off, and the slaves of the seraglio are shaved as a mark of their servile condition. Previous to the reign of Alexander the Great the Greeks wore beards, but during the wars of that monarch they com- menced shaving, the practice having been sug- gested, it is said, by Alexander for the purpose of depriving the enemy of an opportunity of catching the soldiers by the beard. The fash- ion thus begun continued until the reign of i Justinian, when long beards again became cus- tomary. The year 300 B. C. is given as the time about which the Romans commenced the
 * as a badge of dignity. The fact that the ancient
 * practice of shaving, and Scipio Africanus was,