Bear

BEAR, in Latin, Ursus, in Greek, Arctos, and in Hebrew, Dob. Bears were very common in Palestine. David says, 1 Sam. xvii. 34, 36.that he had often fought with Bears and Lions. The Prophet Elisha having cursed some of the children of Bethel, for crying out in an insulting manner, Go up, thou Bald-pate, go up, thou Bald-pate, two Bears issued out from a neighbouring 2 Kings xi. 23, 24.forest, and devoured two and forty of them. The sacred Writers to aggravate the transports of a man in passion say, He is 2 Sam. xvii. 8. Prov. xvii. 12. Hosea xiii. 8.chaf’d in his mind as a bear robbed of his whelps. The Hebrew word Dob is given them by reason of the shagged hair with which every part of their body is loaded. Their claws are very hooked, and they make use of them in ascending to the tops of trees: they feed upon fruits, honey, bees, and flesh. There are white Bears to be seen in the Northern countries. Many of them are to be found in Poland, Muscovy, Lithuania, and the great forests of Germany. Some have believed, that Bears bring their young into the world shapeless, and that their dams lick them into form. There are particular Writers who derive Ursus from the verb ordiri to begin, as if it were said orsus begun, rough-drawn; but this is a popular error. Aristotle and Pliny¹ say, that Bears when they are first littered are scarce bigger than a mouse, and that they grow as long as they live; that they have neither eyes nor hair, and that their claws only appear. The dams go no longer than thirty days, and generally produce five young ones. Pariunt trigesimo die, ut plurimum quinos. Hi sunt candida informisque caro, paulò muribus major, sine oculis, sine pilo, ungues tantum prominent. Hanc lambendo paulatim figurant.

They lye hid all the winter and asleep. The male continues in this condition forty days, and the female four months. They sleep so soundly for the first fourteen days, that blows will not wake them. During these forty days they are said to have no nourishment but from licking their feet. It is certain that in all this time they eat nothing, and that at the end of it the males are very fat. The flesh of Bears was much esteemed by the Ancients. Even at this day the paw of a Bear well salted and smoaked is served up at the tables of Princes. This animal, as rough and stupid as it seems to be, is capable of discipline, it leaps, dances, and plays a thousand little tricks at the sound of a trumpet. Some affirm, that it is Isai. xi. 7.even susceptible of love for women.

Isaiah describing the happiness of the Messiah’s reign, says, that then the Ox and the Bear will be seen feeding together, and their young living peaceably in the same stable; by the Bear the Gentiles, by the Ox the Jews were signified, these two people Dan. vii. 5.will be united in the Church, and compose but one flock. Daniel in his description of the four great Monarchies, represents that of the Chaldæans under the idea of a Lioness; that of the Persians under the notion of a Bear; that of the Greeks under the figure of a Leopard, and that of the successors of Alexander the Great, under the idea of a terrible Animal. The Bear described by the Prophet had three rows of teeth in his jaw; by this Cyrus was principally represented.

Rev. xiii. 2.S. John in the Revelations describes to us the persecutors of the Church, under the idea of a Beast with seven heads, having ten horns with ten diadems upon them, and the names of blasphemy. His body resembled that of a Leopard; his feet were like those of a Bear, and his mouth like that of a Lion. Some believe that by this Beast with seven heads the seven Roman Emperors were meant who persecuted the Church from the time of S. John the Evangelist, namely, Dioclesian, Maximian, Galerius, Maximinus, Severus, Maxentius and Licinius; in these there met together the cruelty, strength, voracity and malice of the Leopard, the Bear, and Lion.

The Author of Ecclesiasticus says, That the anger of a woman changeth her countenance; she puts on a melancholy, fierce look like a Bear; her complexion turns livid like a sackcloth. xxv. 17. A Bear when angry is terrible. This animal has of itself an hideous look, but when it is enraged it makes people tremble.

If. lix. 11.Isaiah compares the despair of the wicked to the roarings of a Bear. Rugiemus quasi ursi omnes: The cries of Bears grown furious are sufficient to frighten the most intrepid.

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