The young pods of another leguminous climbing herb, Dolichos Lablab, as well as the seeds, are widely used in the tropics, as we use the kidney bean. The plant is probably a native of tropical Africa, but is now generally cultivated in the tropics. The word Dolichos is of Greek origin, and was used by Theophrastus for the scarlet runner.

Another species, D. biflorus, is the horse gram, the seed of which is eaten by the poorer class of natives in India, and is also, as are the pods, a food for horses and cattle.

The Soy bean, Glycine hispida, was included by Linnaeus in the genus Dolichos. It is extensively cultivated in China and Japan, chiefly for the pleasant-flavoured seed from which is prepared a piquant sauce. It is also widely grown in India, where the bean is caten, while the plant forms a valuable fodder; it is cultivated for the latter purpose in the United States. Other references to beans will be found under special headings, such as CALABAR BEAN, LOCUST-TREE. There are also several non-leguininous seeds to which the popular name bean is attached. Among these may be mentioned the sacred Egyptian or Pythagorean bean (Nelumbium speciosum), and the Ignatius bean (probably Strychnos multiflora), a source of strychnine.

the attacks of the aphis by the end of June, when it begins its ravages. Field-beans yield from 25 to 35 bushels to the acre. Phascolus vulgaris, the kidney, French or haricot bean, an annual, dwarf and bushy in growth,is widely cultivated in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical regions, but is nowhere known as a wild plant. It was long supposed to be of Indian origin, an idea which was disproved by Alphonse de Candolle, who sums up the facts bearing on its origin as follows:-Phaseolus vulgaris has not been long cultivated in India, the south-west of Asia and Egypt, and it is not certain that it was known in Europe before the discovery of America. At the latter epoch the number of varieties in European gardens suddenly increased, and all authors began to mention them. The majority of the species of the genus exist in South America, and seeds apparently belonging to the species in question have been found in Peruvian tombs of an uncertain date, intermixed with many species, all American. Hence it is probable that the plant is of South American origin. It is a tender annual, and should be grown in a rich light loamy soil and a warm sheltered situation. The soil should be well enriched with hot-bed dung. The earliest crop may be sown by the end of March or beginning of April. If, however, the temperature of the soil is below 45°, the beans make but little progress. The main crops should be got in early in May; and a later sowing may be made early in July. The earlier plantings may be sown in small pots, and put in frames or houses, until they can be safely planted out-of-doors. A light covering of straw or some other simple shelter suffices to protect from late frosts. The seeds should be covered 1 or 2 in. deep, the distance between the rows being about 2 ft., or for the dwarfest sorts 18 in., and that between plants from 4 to 6 in. The pods may be used as a green vegetable,ployer to his workpeople, and then colloquially any jollification. in which case they should be gathered whilst they are so crisp as to be readily snapped in two when bent; but when the dry seeds are to be used the pods should be allowed to ripen. As the green pods are gathered others will continue to be formed in abundance, but if old seed-forming pods are allowed to remain the formation of young ones will be greatly checked. There are numerous varieties; among the best are Canadian Wonder, Canterbury and Black Negro.

Phaseolus multiflorus, scarlet runner, is nearly allied to P. vulgaris, of which it is sometimes regarded as a variety, but differs in its climbing habit. It is naturally perennial and has a thick fleshy root, but is grown in Great Britain as a tender annual. Its bright, generally scarlet flowers, arranged in long racemes, and the fact that it will flourish in any ordinary good garden soil, combine to make it a favourite garden plant. It is also of interest as being one of the few plants that twine in a direction contrary to the apparent motion of the sun. The seeds of the runner beans should be sown in an open plot,-the first sowing in May, another at the beginning of June, and a third about the middle of June. In the London market-gardens they are sown 8 to 12 in. apart, in 4 ft. rows if the soil is good. The twining tops are pinched or cut off when the plants are from 2 to 2 ft. high, to save the expense of staking. It is better, however, in private gardens to have the rows standing separately, and to support the plants by stakes 6 or 7 ft. high and about a foot apart, the tops of the stakes being crossed about one-third down. If the weather is dry when the pods are forming abundantly, plenty of tepid water should be supplied to the plants. In training the shoots to their supports, they should be twined from right to left, contrary to the course of the sun or they will not lay hold. By frequently picking the pods the plants are encouraged to form fresh blooms from which pods may be picked until the approach of frost.

The ordinary scarlet runner is most commonly grown, but there is a white-flowered variety which has also white seeds; this is very prolific and of excellent quality. Another variety called Painted Lady, with the flowers red and white, is very ornamental, but not so productive. Carter's Champion is a large-podded productive variety.

Another species P. lunatus, the Lima bean, a tall biennial with a scimitar-shaped pod (whence the specific name) 2 to 3 in. long containing a few large seeds, is widely cultivated in the warmer parts of the world.

The ancient Greeks and Romans made use of beans in gathering the votes of the people, and for the election of magistrates. A white bean signified absolution, and a black one condemnation. Beans had a mysterious use in the lemuralia and parentalia, where the master of the family, after washing his hands three times, threw black beans over his head nine times, reiterating the words "I redeem myself and my family by these beans." BEAN-FEAST, primarily an annual dinner given by an em

The phrase is variously derived. The most probable theory is that which connects it with the custom in France, and afterwards in Germany and England, of a feast on Twelfth Night, at which a cake with a bean buried in it was a great feature. The beanking was he who had the good fortune to have the slice of cake in which was the bean. This choosing of a king or queen by a bean was formerly a common Christmas diversion at the English and Scottish courts, and in both English universities. This monarch was master of the revels like his congener the lord of misrule. A clue to his original functions is possibly found in the old popular belief that the weather for the ensuing twelve months was determined by the weather of the twelve days from Christmas to Twelfth Night, the weather of each particular month being prognosticated from each day. Thus the king of the bean of Twelfth Night may have originally reigned for the twelve days, his chief duty being the performance of magical ceremonies for ensuring good weather during the ensuing twelve months. Probably in him and the lord of misrule it is correct to find the lineal descendant of the old king of the Saturnalia, the real man who personated Saturn and, when the revels ceased, suffered a real death in his assumed character. Another but most improbable derivation for bean-feast connects it with M.E. bene" prayer," "request," the allusion being to the soliciting of alms towards the cost of their Twelfth Night dinner by the workpeople.

See WAYZGOOSE; MISRULE, LORD OF; also J. Boemus, Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium (Lyons, 1541), p. 222; Laisnel de la Salle, Croyances et légendes du centre de la France, i. 19-29; Lecour, Esquisses du Bocage normand, ii. 125; Schmitz, Sitten und Sagen des Eifler Volkes, i. 6; Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (Hazlitt's ed 1905), under "Twelfth Night "; Cortet, Fêtes religieuses, p. 29 sqq.

"

BEAR, properly the name of the European brown bear (Ursus arctus), but extended to include all the members of the Ursidae, the typical family of Arctoid carnivora, distinguished by their massive bodies, short limbs, and almost rudimentary tails. With the single exception of the Indian sloth-bear, all the species have forty-two teeth, of which the incisors and canines closely resemble those of purely carnivorous mammals; while the molars, and especially the one known as the "sectorial" or carnassial," have their surfaces tuberculated so as to adapt them for grinding vegetable substances. As might have been supposed from their dentition, the bears are omnivorous; but most prefer vegetable food, including honey, when a sufficient

supply of this can be had. The grizzly bear, however, is chiefly | " forms their beds and their coverlets, bonnets for their heads, carnivorous; while the polar bear is almost wholly so.

gloves for their hands and collars for their dogs. The flesh and Bears are five-toed, and provided with formidable claws, fat are their dainties. Of the intestines they make masks or which are not retractile, and thus better fitted for digging and covers for their faces, to protect them from the glare of the sun climbing than for tearing. Most climb trees in a slow, lumbering in the spring, and use them as a substitute for glass, by extending fashion, and, in descending, always come hind-quarters first. them over their windows. Even the shoulder-blades are said The grizzly bear is said to lose this power of climbing in the to be put in requisition for cutting grass." In confinement the adult stage. In northern countries bears retire during the brown bear is readily tamed; and advantage has been taken winter into caves and the hollows of trees, or allow the falling of the facility with which it can sustain itself on the hind feet snow to cover them, and there remain dormant till the advent to teach it to dance to the sound of music. It measures 4 ft. in of spring, about which time the female usually produces her length, and is about 2 ft. high. Of this species Crowther's young. These are born naked and blind, and it is commonly bear from the Atlas Mountains, the Syrian bear (Ursus arctus five weeks before they see, or become covered with hair. Before pyriacus) and the snow or isabelline bear (Ursus arctus isabellinas) hibernating the adults grow very fat, and it is by the gradual of the Himalaya are local races, or at most subspecies.' American consumption of this fat-known in commerce as bear's grease-naturalists regard the big brown bears of Alaska as a distinct that such vital action as is necessary to the continuance of life group. They range from Sitka to the extremity of the Alaskan is sustained. Peninsula, over Kodiak Island, and inland. Their distinctive external features are their large size, light-brown colour, high shoulders, massive heads of great breadth and shaggy coat. The grizzly bear (Ursus arctus horribilis, formerly known as U. ferox) is regarded by some naturalists as a distinct species and by others as a variety of the brown bear, to which it is closely allied. It was said to exceed all other American mammals in ferocity of disposition and muscular strength. Stories were told of its attacking the bison, and it has been reported to carry off the carcase of a wapiti, weighing nearly 1000 lb, for a considerable distance to its den, there to devour it at leisure. It also eats fruit and vegetables. Its fur is usually of a yellowish-brown colour, coarse and grizzled, and of little value commercially, while its flesh, unlike that of other bears, is uneatable even by the Indians. The grizzly bear is now rare in the United States, save in the Yellowstone Park and the Clearwater Mountains of Idaho, though more common in British Columbia. Several geographical races are recognized. The Tibet bear (U. pruinosus) is a lightcoloured small species.

The bear family is widely distributed, being found in every quarter of the globe except Australia, and in all climates, from the highest northern latitudes yet reached by man to the warm regions of India and Malaya. In the north-west corner of Africa the single representative of the family found on that continent

occurs.

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The polar or white bear (Ursus maritimus), common to the Arctic regions of both hemispheres, is distinguished from the other species by having the soles of the feet covered with close-set hairs,-in adaptation to the wants of the creature, the bear being thereby enabled to walk securely on slippery ice. In the whiteness of its fur also, it shows such an assimilation in colour to that of surrounding nature as must be of considerable service in concealing it from its prey. The food of the white bear consists chiefly of seals and fish, in pursuit of which it shows great power of swimming and diving, and a considerable degree of sagacity; but its food also includes the carcases of whales, birds and their eggs, and grass and berries when these can be had. That it can sustain life on a purely vegetable diet is proved by instances on record of its being fed for years on bread only, in confinement. These bears are strong swimmers, Sir Edward | Sabine having found one "swimming powerfully 40 m. from the nearest shore, and with no ice in sight to afford it rest." They are often carried on floating ice to great distances, and to more southern latitudes than their own, no fewer than twelve Polar bears having been known to reach Iceland in this way during one winter. The female always hibernates, but the male may be seen abroad at all seasons. In bulk the white bear exceeds most other members of the family, measuring nearly 9 ft. in length, and often weighing 1600 lb.

Land bears have the soles of the feet destitute of hair, and their fur more or less shaggy. On these the brown bear (Ursus arctus, &рKтos of Aristotle) is found in one or other of its varieties all over the temperate and north temperate regions of the eastern hemisphere, from Spain to Japan. The fur is usually brownish, but there are black, blackish-grey and yellowish varieties. It is a solitary animal, frequenting the wooded parts of the regions it inhabits, and living on a mixed diet of fruits, vegetable, honey, fish and the smaller animals. In winter it hibernates, concealing itself in some hollow or cavern. It does not seek to attack man; but when baited, or in defence of its young, shows great courage and strength, rising on its hind legs and endeavouring to grasp its antagonist in an embrace. Bearbaiting, till within comparatively recent times, was a favourite sport throughout Europe, but, along with cock-fighting and badger-baiting, has gradually disappeared before a more humane civilization. It was a favourite pastime among the Romans, who imported their bears from Britain, a proof that the animal was then comparatively abundant in that country; indeed, from reference made to it in early Scottish history, the bear does not appear to have been extirpated in Britain before the end of the 11th century. It is now found in greatest abundance in Norway, Russia and Siberia, where hunting the bear is a favourite sport, and where, when dead, its remains are highly valued. Among the Kamchadales" the skin of the bear," says a traveller,

The American black bear (Ursus americanus) occurs throughout the wooded parts of the North American continent, whence it is being gradually driven to make room for man. It is similar in size to the brown bear, but its fur is of a soft even texture, and of a shining black colour, to which it owes its commercial value. At the beginning of the 19th century black bears were killed in enormous numbers for their furs, which at that time were highly valued. In 1803 the skins imported into England numbered 25,000, but the imports have since decreased to one-half of that number. They are chiefly used for military accoutrements. This is a timid animal, feeding almost solely on fruits, and lying dormant during winter, at which period it is most frequently killed. It is an object of superstitious reverence to the Indians, who never kill it without apologizing and deploring the necessity which impels them to do so.

The Himalayan black bear (U. torquatus) is found in the forest regions ranging from the Persian frontier eastward to Assam. The average length is about 5 ft.; there is no under-fur, and the coat is smooth, black in colour, with the exception of a white horseshoe-mark on the chest. It feeds chiefly on fruit and roots, but kills sheep, goats, deer, ponies and cattle, and sometimes devours carrion.

The small bruang or Malayan bear (Ursus malayanus) is of a jetblack colour, with a white semilunar mark on the chest, and attains a length of 4 ft. Its food consists almost solely of vegetables and honey, but the latter is its favourite food,—the extreme length and pliability of the tongue enabling it to scoop out the honeycombs from the hollows of trees. It is found in the Malay Peninsula and Islands, and is readily tamed.

Not much larger than the Malay bear is the South American spectacled bear of the Andes (U. ornatus), distinguished from all the rest by the presence of a perforation in the lower end of the humerus, and hence sometimes separated as Tremarctus. It is black, with tawny rings round the eyes, and white cheeks, throat and chest. A second race or species exists. The sloth-bear (Melursus labiatus or ursinus) is distinguished 1 Lydekker, in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1897, p. 412.

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by the absence of one pair of upper incisors, the small size of the | Nicholas I. visited England as cesarevich, he was taken to see a cheek-teeth and the very extensile character of the lips. It is prize-fight and a bull-baiting. In this latter form of the sport also known as the aswail and the honey-bear, the last name being the bull's nose was usually blown full of pepper to render him also given to the Malay bear and the kinkajou. It is about the the more furious. The bull was often allowed a hole in the size of the brown bear, is covered with long, black hair, and of ground, into which to thrust his nose and lips, his most vulnerextremely uncouth aspect. It inhabits the mountainous regions able parts. Sometimes the bull was tethered, and dogs, trained of India, is readily tamed and is the bear usually exhibited by for the purpose, set upon him one by one, a successful attack the Hindu jugglers. The food consists of fruits, honey and resulting in the dog fastening his teeth firmly in the bull's snout. white ants. This was called "pinning the bull." A sport called bull-running was popular in several towns of England, particularly at Tutbury and Stamford. Its establishment at Tutbury was due to John of Gaunt, to whose minstrels, on the occasion of their annual festival on August 16th the prior of Tutbury, for his tenure, delivered a bull, which had his horns sawn off, his ears and tail cut off, his nostrils filled with pepper and his whole body smeared with soap. The minstrels gave chase to the bull, which became the property of any minstrel of the county of Stafford who succeeded in holding him long enough to cut off a lock of his hair. Otherwise he was returned to the prior. At the dissolution of the monasteries this tenure devolved upon the dukes of Devonshire, who suppressed it in 1788. At Stamford the running took place annually on November 13th, the bull being provided by the butchers of the town, the townspeople taking part in the chase, which was carried on until both people and beast were exhausted, and ended in the killing of the bull. Certain rules were strictly observed, such as the prohibition of carrying sticks or staves that were shod with iron. .The Stamford bullrunning survived well into the 19th century. Bear-baiting and bull-baiting were prohibited by act of parliament in 1835.

Fossil remains of extinct bears first occur in strata of the Pliocene age. Those of the great cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), found abundantly in certain caverns of central Europe and Asia, show that it must have exceeded in size the polar bear of the present day. Its remains are also found in similar situations in Britain associated with those of an allied species (Ursus priscus). BEAR-BAITING and BULL-BAITING, sports formerly very popular in England but now suppressed on account of their cruelty. They took place in arenas built in the form of theatres which were the common resort even of cultivated people. In the bear-gardens, which are known to have existed since the time of Henry II., the bear was chained to a stake by one hind leg or by the neck and worried by dogs. Erasmus, writing (about 1500) from the house of Sir Thomas More, spoke of "many herds of bears maintained in the country for the purpose of baiting." Sunday was the favourite day for these sports. Hentzner, writing in 1598, describes the bear-garden at Bankside as "another place, built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of Bulls and Bears. They are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs, but not without great risk to the dogs from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other, and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those that are wounded or tired." He also describes the whipping of a blinded bear, a favourite variation of bear-baiting. For a famous baiting which took place before Queen Elizabeth in 1575 thirteen bears were provided. Of it Robert Laneham (fl.1575) wrote, “it was a sport very pleasant to see, to see the bear, with his pink eyes, tearing after his enemies' approach; the nimbleness and wait of the dog to take his advantage and the force and experience of the bear again to avoid his assaults: if he were bitten in one place how he would pinch in another to get free; that if he were taken once, then by what shift with biting, with clawing, with roaring, with tossing and tumbling he would work and wind himself from them; and when he was loose to shake his ears twice or thrice with the blood and the slaver hanging about his physiognomy." The famous" Paris Garden" in Southwark was the chief bear-garden in London. A Spanish nobleman of the time, who was taken to see a pony baited that had an ape tied to its back, expressed himself to the effect that " to see the animal kicking amongst the dogs, with the screaming of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable." Butler describes a bear-baiting at length in the first canto of his Hudibras.

BEARD, WILLIAM HOLBROOK (1825-1900), American painter, was born on the 13th of April 1825 at Painesville, Ohio. He studied abroad, and in 1861 removed to New York City, where in 1862 he became a member of the National Academy of Design. He was a prolific worker and a man of much inventiveness and originality, though of modest artistic endowment. His humorous treatment of cats, dogs, horses and monkeys, generally with some human occupation and expression, usually satirical, gave him a great vogue at one time, and his pictures were largely reproduced. His brother, James Henry Beard (1814-1893), was also a painter.

BEARD (A.S. beard, O. H. and Mod.. Ger. Bart, Dan. baard, Icel. bar, rim, edge, beak of a ship, &c., O. Slav. barda, Russ. barodá. Cf. Welsh barf, Lat. barba, though, according to the New English Dictionary, the connexion is for phonetic reasons doubtful). Modern usage applies this word to the hair grown upon a man's chin and cheek. When the chin is shaven, what remains upon the cheeks is called whiskers. Moustache " or moustaches describes the hair upon the upper lip. But the words have in the past had less exact meaning. Beard has stood alone for all these things, and whisker has in its time signified what we now call moustache, as in the case of Robinson Crusoe's great pair of "Turkish whiskers."

The bearded races of mankind have ever held the beard in The Puritans endeavoured to put an end to animal-baiting, high honour. It is the sign of full manhood; the lad or the although Macaulay sarcastically suggested that this was "not eunuch is beardless, and the bearded woman is reckoned a witch, because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure a loathsome thing to all ages. Also the beard shrinks from the to the spectators." The efforts of the Puritans seem, however, profane hand; a tug at the beard is sudden pain and dishonour. to have had little effect, for we find the sport flourishing at the The Roman senator sat like a carven thing until the wondering Restoration; but the conscience of cultivated people seems to Goth touched his long beard; but then he struck, although he have been touched, for Evelyn wrote in his Diary, under the date died for the blow. The future King John gave deadly offence of June 16th, 1670: "I went with some friends to the bear-garden, to the native chieftains, when visiting Ireland in 1185, by pluckwhere was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and bull baiting, iting at their flowing beards. being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather David's ambassadors had their beards despitefully shaven by barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the a bold heathen. Their own king mercifully covered their shame Irish wolf-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately" Tarry ye at Jericho until your beards be grown -but war creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls answered the insult. The oath on the beard is as old as history, tossed a dog full into a lady's lap, as she sat in one of the boxes and we have an echo of it in the first English political ballad at a considerable height from the arena. Two poor dogs were when Sir Simon de Montfort swears "by his chin " revenge on killed, and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and I most Warenne. heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime, which I had not seen, I think, in twenty years before." Steele also attacked these cruel sports in the Tatler. Nevertheless, when the tsar

Adam, our first father, was by tradition created with a beard: Zeus Allfather is bearded, and the old painters and carvers who hardily pictured the first person of the Trinity gave Him the

long beard of his fatherhood. The race-fathers have it and the says William of Malmesbury, "leave the upper lip unshaven, ancient heroes. Abraham and Agamemnon, Woden and King suffering the hair continually to increase," and to Harold's spies Arthur and Charlemagne, must all be bearded in our pictures. the Conqueror's knights, who had " the whole face with both lips With the Mahommedan peoples the beard as worn by an un-shaven," were strange and priest-like. Matthew Paris had a shaven prophet has ever been in high renown, the more so that strange idea that the beard was distinctive of Englishmen; he amongst most of the conquering tribes who first acknowledged asserts that those who remained in England were compelled to the unity of God and prophethood of Mahomet it grows freely. shave their beards, while the native nobles who went into exile But before Mahomet's day, kings of Persia had plaited their kept their beards and flowing locks "like the Easterns and sacred beards with golden thread, and the lords of Nineveh had especially the Trojans." He even believed that "William with curiously curled and oiled beards such as their winged bull wears. the beard," who headed a rising in London under Richard I., Bohadin tells us that Saladin's little son wept for terror when came of a stock which had scorned to shave, out of hatred for the he saw the crusaders' envoys "with their clean-shaven chins." Normans, a statement which Thierry developed. Selim I. (1512-1521) comes down as a Turkish sultan who broke into holy custom and cut off his beard, telling a remonstrating Mufti that his vizier should now have nothing to lead him by. But such tampering with tradition has its dangers, and the absolute rule of Peter the Great is made clear when we know that he taxed Russian beards and shaved his own, and yet died in his bed. Alexander the Great did as much and more with his well-drilled Macedonians, and was obeyed when he bade them shave off the handle by which an enemy could seize them.