mmer-Night's Dream,"
1877, p. 101.

[349] "Folk-Lore Record," 1879, p. 201.

In Scotland[350] it is known as the Backe or Bakie bird. An immense deal
of folk-lore has clustered round this curious little animal.[351]

[350] Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary," 1879, vol. i p. 106.

[351] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 189;
Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," 1871, pp. 13, 14.

_Bear._ According to an old idea, the bear brings forth unformed lumps
of animated flesh, and then licks them into shape--a vulgar error,
referred to in "3 Henry VI." (iii. 2), where Gloster, bemoaning his
deformity, says of his mother:

"She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,

* * * * *

To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam."

This erroneous notion, however, was long ago confuted by Sir Thomas
Browne.[352] Alexander Ross, in his "Arcana Microcosmi," nevertheless
affirms that bears bring forth their young deformed and misshapen, by
reason of the thick membrane in which they are wrapped, that is covered
over with a mucous matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the
winter-time, by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the
eye the cub appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is
afterwards licked away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that
which before seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape. This,
he contends, is all that the ancients meant.[353] Ovid (Metamorphoses,
bk. xv. l. 379) thus describes this once popular fancy:

"Nec catulus, partu quem reddidit ursa recenti,
Sed male viva caro est: lambendo mater in artus
Fingit, et in formam, quantam capit ipsa, reducit."

[352] "Vulgar Errors," 1852, vol. i. p. 247.

[353] See Bartholomaeus, "De Proprietate Rerum," lib. xviii. c.
112; Aristotle, "History of Animals," lib. vi. c. 31; Pliny's
"Natural History," lib. viii. c. 54.

Bears, in days gone by, are reported to have been surprised by means of
a mirror, which they would gaze on, affording their pursuers an
opportunity of taking the surer aim. In "Julius Caesar" (ii. I), this
practice is mentioned by Decius:

"unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses."[354]

[354] Steevens on this passage.

Batman, "On Bartholomaeus" (1582), speaking of the bear, says,