“Just like a brace of bear-whelps, close and crafty, Sucking their fingers for their food.” It has long been an accepted belief in rural England, that a child who has had a ride upon a bear will escape whooping cough, a belief that has had great pecuniary value to the Savoyards and others, who take a dancing bear through the villages, as the rustics gladly fee them for the privilege of a ride for their children, and the attendant immunity from one of the most infectious and distressing of the minor ailments of childhood. We have long been familiar with the idea that bears attacked bee-hives, but we have accepted the notion that the bears did so from an appreciation of the honey that they found therein. It appears, however, that the bear does it really as a kind of stimulant, the stinging of the angry bees giving him just a welcome titillation, and arousing him from a certain torpidity that at times oppresses him, and which he rightly feels should be fought against. Others tell us that the outraged bees, justly angry at the overturning of their home and the pillage of their store, supply, by the energy of their attack and the keenness of their stings, just that pleasant piquant set-off to the epicurean bear that the over-richness and cloying sweetness of the honey seems to call for. Yet a third theory is that “they are many times subject to dimnesse of sight, for which cause especially they seeke after honeycombes, that the bees might settle upon them, and with their stings make them bleed about the head, and by that meanes discharge them of that heavinesse which troubleth their eyes.” Possibly three more equally reasonable theories might be forthcoming on searching for them in the various old tomes in which the wisdom of our forefathers is enshrined. A considerable amount of folk-lore has gathered round the hare. It was held to be a favourable omen to meet certain beasts early in the morning, but it was especially unfortunate to meet a hare. “Sume Bestes han gode meetynge, that is to seye for to meete with him first at Morne; and sume Bestes wykked meetynge: and that thei han proved ofte tyne tat the Hare hathe fulle evylle meetynge, and Swyn, and many othere Bestes. The Sparhauke and other Foules of Raveyne whan thei fleen aftre here preye and take it before men of Armes, it is a gode Signe; and if he fayle of takynge his preye it is an evylle sygne, and also to such folke it is an eville meetynge of Ravennes.” Carew, in his “Survey of Cornwall,” mentions that “to talk of hares or such uncouth things” was regarded as omnious of coming ill by the fishermen; and at some places on the coast until quite recently—or possibly even till to-day, for such notions die out very slowly—if a fisherman going down to his boat were to see a hare cross his path, he would not that day go to sea.