BEA 



INDEX. 



BED 



5 



Barometer, serviceable in measuring the height of mountains, 

 45 ; measures the weight of the air ; in what manner, 89 ; frequent 

 changes in the air without any sensible alteration in the barome- 

 ter, 90 ; when it marks a peculiar lightness in the air, no wonder 

 that it foretells a storm ; and why, 103. 



Barretiere, a famous youth, considered as a prodigy of learning 

 at the age of fourteen; slept regularly twelve hours in the twenty- 

 four, 157. 



Buss, a rocky island in the Frith of Forth. See Birds, 582. 



Balk, persons coming out of a warm bath several ounces heavier 

 than when they went in ; warm bath of sea water, a kind of relief 

 to mariners, upon a failure of fresh water at sea, 78. 



Bat., bats as biff as rabbits, 120 ; by some reckoned among 

 birds, 2116 ; doubtful among naturalists whether beast or bird, now 

 universally take place among quadrupeds, 382 ; Pliny, Gesner, 

 and Aldrovandus, placed it among birds ; scarcely in any particu- 

 lar resembles the bird, except in the power of sustaining itself in 

 the air ; description of the common sort in England ; its intestines 

 and skeleton, in some measure, resemble those of mankind ; 

 makes its first appearance early in summer, and begins its flight in 

 the evening ; is seen to skim along the surface of waters ; feeds 

 upon gnats, moths, and nocturnal insects of every kind, which it 

 pursues open-mouthed ; its flight laborious, irregular, and, if 

 interrupted, not readily followed by a second elevation ; usually 

 taken when striking against an object it falls to the ground ; even 

 in the summer, it sleeps the greatest part of the time ; its retreat ; 

 continues in a torpid state during winter ; is usually hanging by 

 its hooked claws to the roofs of caves ; unaffected by all change 

 of weather ; is destroyed particularly by the owl ; the bat couples 

 and brings forth in summer from two to five young at a time ; the 

 female has two nipples forward on the breast, as in the human 

 kind ; and this is a motive for Linnaeus to give it the title of a 

 primas, to rank it in the same order with mankind ; the female 

 makes no nest for her young ; when she begins to grow hungry, 

 and finds a necessity of stirring abroad, she takes her little ones 

 and sticks them by their hooks against the sides of her apartment, 

 and there they immoveably cling, and patiently wait her return ; 

 less similitude to the race of birds than of quadrupeds ; great 

 labour in flying, soon fatigues, and tires it in less than an hour ; 

 its petty thefts upon the fat of bacon ; long-eared bat ; horse-shoe 

 bat ; rhinoceros bat ; a large race of bats in the East and West 

 Indies truly formidable ; a dangerous enemy ; when united in 

 flocks they become dreadful ; are eaten ; the Negroes of the Afri- 

 can coast will not eat them though starving ; on the African 

 coast they fly in such numbers, as to bscure the setting sun ; the 

 rousette, or great bat of Madagascar, is found along the coasts 

 of Africa and Malabar ', where it is often seen about the size of a 

 large hen ; destroys the ripe fruits, and sometimes settles upon 

 animals, and man himself; destroys fowls and domestic animals, 

 unless preserved with the utmost cure, and often fasten upon the 

 inhabitants, attack them in the face, and make terrible wounds ; 

 the ancients have taken their idea of harpies from these fierce and 

 %'oraeious creatures, equally deformed, greedy, uncleanly, and 

 cruel ; the bat called the American vampyre ; its description by 

 IJlloa ; purport of his account confirmed bv various travellers, 

 who all agree that it has a faculty of drawing blood from persons 

 sleeping, and destroying them before they awake ; a strong 

 difficulty remains how they make the wound ; Ulloa and Buffon's 

 opinions ; suppose the animal endowed with a strong power of 

 suction ; and that, without inflicting any wound, by continuing to 

 draw, it enlarges the pores of the skin, so that the blood at length 

 passes ; they are one of the great pests of South America, 380 to 

 388 ; found in the holes deserted by the woodpecker, 520. 



To bay, said of a stag when he turns his head against the 

 hounds, 2(>2. 



Kiatrle. See Jlmtnd, 311. 



Bi'iili. how that of animals is produced. 147. 



Beam, by Irtnters meant that part which bears the antlers, 262. 



Beams, those of the sun shining upon the fire put il out, and 

 why ; darting directly upon us, without the medium of the air, 

 would burn us up at once, or blind us with effulgence, 98. 



Bears, in cold frozen regions of the North, not smaller than in 

 milder covintries, 120 ; the North American Indians anoint their skins 

 with fat of bears, 184. the bears now and then make depredations 

 upon the rein-deer, 277 ; in Greenland do not change colour, 278; 

 three different kinds ; the black of America does not reject animal 

 food, as believed ; places where they are found ; retreat of the 

 brown bear ; a vulgar error, that during winter the brown bear 

 lives by sucking its paws ; it seems rather to exist upon the ex- 

 uhernnce of its former flesh, 436; the male and female do not 

 inhabit the same den, and seldom are seen together, but on the ac- 



cesses of genial desire ; care of the female for her young ; the bear, 

 when tamed, seems gentle and placid, yet still to be distrusted and 

 managed with caution, being often treacherous and resentful with- 

 out a cause ; is capable of a degree of instruction ; when come to 

 maturity, can never be tamed ; methods of taking them ; their 

 paws and hams a great delicacy ; the white placed in the coldest 

 climates, grows larger than in the temperate zones, and remains 

 master of the icy mountains in Spitzbergen and Greenland ; 

 unable to retreat, when attacked with fire-arms they make a 

 fierce and long resistance ; they live upon fish and seals ; their 

 flesh is too strong for food ; are often seen on ice-floats several 

 leagues at sea, though bad swimmers ; the white sometimes jumps 

 into a Greenlander's boat, and if he does not overset it, sits down 

 calmly, and like a passenger suffers itself to be rowed along ; hun- 

 ger makes it swim after fish ; often a battle ensues between a bear 

 and a morse, or a whale, and the latter generally proves victorious, 

 436, 437. 



Beards, Americans taking great pains to pluck theirs up by 

 the roots, the underpart, and all but the whiskers, therefore sup- 

 posed to have no hair growing on that part ; Linnaeus himself has 

 fallen into this mistake ; different customs of men, in the manner 

 of wearing their beards, 145, 146. 



Beasts are more fierce and cruel in all countries where men are 

 most barbarous, 22. 



Beasts of chase, in the reign of William Rufus, and Henry tho 

 First, it was less criminal to destroy one of the human species 

 than a beast of chase ; sacred edifices thrown down, and turned to 

 waste, to make room for beasts of chase, 261. 



Beasts of prey seldom devour each other ; they chiefly seek 

 after the deer or the goat ; their usual method of hunting, 208. 



Beaver, known to build like an architect, and rule like a citizen, 

 210 ; its fore parts taste like flesh, and the hinder like the fish it 

 feeds on, 285 ; a remaining monument of brutal society ; its 

 qualities, taken from its fellows, and kept in solitude or domestic 

 lameness ; resists only when driven to extremity, and fights when 

 its speed cannot avail ; the only quadruped that has a flat broad 

 tail, covered with scales, serving as a rudder to direct its motions 

 in the water ; the sole quadruped with membranes between the 

 toes on the hind feet, and none on the fore feet ; the only animal 

 in its fore parts entirely resembles a quadruped, and in its hinder 

 parts approaches the nature of fishes, having a scaly tail ; its 

 description ; has but one vent for the emission of excrements and 

 urine ; they assemble about the months of June and July ; make 

 a society to continue the greatest part of the year ; form a com- 

 pany of above two hundred ; fix their abode by the side of a lake or 

 river ; cut with their teeth a tree thicker than a man's body ; 

 amazing works and mansion-houses ; convey their materials by 

 water ; mix clay and dry grass together, work it into a mortar, 

 and with their tails plaster their work within and without ; their 

 walls perpendicular, and two feet thick ; their piers fourscore or a 

 hundred feet long, and ten or twelve feet thick at the base ; their 

 dykes ten and twelve feet thick at the foundation; their apiirt- 

 ments round or oval, and divided into three stories, one above the 

 other ; visited too often by men. they work only in the night time, 

 or abandon the place, and seek a safer situation ; four hundred 

 reside in one mansion-house, divided into a number of apartments, 

 having communication with each other ; their works in the north- 

 ern parts finished in August or September ; in summer they are 

 epicures ; their provisions for the winter season ; they drive piles 

 into the earth, to fence and fortify their habitation against the 

 wind and water ; cut down branches three to ten feet in length ; 

 the largest are conveyed to their magazines by a whole body ; the 

 smallest by one only ; each taking a different way, and having a 

 walk assigned him, that no one should interrupt another in his 

 work ; wood-yards larger or smaller, in proportion to the number 

 in the family ; manner of catching them in snares or by surprise ; 

 they swim with their mortar on their tails, and their stakes between 

 their teeth ; their works damaged by force of water, or feel of 

 huntsmen, instantly repaired, 389 to 391. 



Iliiiuti/, every country has peculiar ideas of beauty ; extraordi- 

 nary tastes for beauty, 139 ; every nation, how barbarous soever, 

 has peculiar arts of heightening beauty ; several of these arts, 

 140 ; a modern lady's face formed exactly like the Venus of Me- 

 dicis, or the sleeping Vestal, would scarcely be considered as a 

 beauty, except by the lovers of antiquity ; less in the object than 

 in the eye of the beholder ; superior beauty of our ancestors not 

 easily comparable, 102. 



Beccajigo, a bird of the sparrow kind, 357. 



Bed, of a river, an increase of water there increases its rapidity, 

 except in cases of inundation, and why ; such bed left dry for 

 some hours by a violent storm blowing directly against the stream. 

 60,61. 



