Beans contain but five hundred and seventy parts of nutritive matter, yet they add materially to the vigour of the horse. There are many horses that will not stand hard work without beans being mingled with their food, and these not horses whose tendency to purge it may be necessary to restrain by the astringency of the bean. There is no traveller who is not aware of the difference in the spirit and continuance of his horse if he allows or denies him beans on his journey. They afford not merely a temporary stimulus, but they may be daily used without losing their power, or producing exhaustion. Two pounds of beans may, with advantage, be mixed with the chaff of the agricultural horse, during the winter. In summer, the quantity may be lessened, or the beans altogether discontinued. Beans are generally given whole. This is very absurd; for the young horse, whose teeth are strong, seldom requires them; while the old horse, to whom they are in a manner necessary, is scarcely able to masticate them, swallows many of them whole which he is unable to break, and drops much corn from his mouth in the ineffectual attempt to break them. Beans should not be merely split, but crushed; they will even then give sufficient employment to the grinders of the animal. Some postmasters use chaff with beans instead of oats. With hardly-worked horses they may possibly be allowed; but in general cases, the beans, without oats, would be too binding and stimulating, and would produce costiveness, and probably megrims or staggers.—_The Horse._ BEAN GOOSE, _s._ [Illustration] This species differs very little in its general appearance from the grey lag goose, the chief distinction between them being in the bill; which in this is small, much compressed near the end, whitish, and sometimes of a pale red in the middle, and black at the base and nail: the latter is shaped somewhat like a horse-bean, from which it has obtained the name of Bean Goose. These birds arrive in the fen counties in the autumn, and take their departure in May. They are said to alight in the corn-fields, and to feed much upon the green wheat while they remain in England. They are reported to breed in great numbers in the Isle of Lewis, and no doubt on others of the Hebrides, and also at Hudson’s Bay.—_Bewick._ BEAR, _s._ A rough savage animal. BEARWARD, _s._ A keeper of bears. _Obs._ BEARD, _s._ The hair that grows on the lips and chin; sharp prickles growing upon the ears of corn; a barb of an arrow. BEAST, _s._ An animal distinguished from birds, insects, fishes, and man; an irrational animal, opposed to man. In _forestry_, there are five beasts which are properly beasts of forest, or venery; _viz._ the hart, hind, hare, boar, and wolf. BEAT, _s._ A stroke, or a striking. In sporting phraseology, it means the place or country a man passes over in pursuit of game. BEAT, _v._ To move in a pulsatory manner; to dash, as a flood or storm. To look for game.