The tail of the Great Bear, outlined by the bright stars of the Big Dipper's handle, is the most clearly marked portion of his anatomy. So inordinately proud is he of this huge appendage, (which is also, the most clearly marked figure in the sky), that, so old legends assert, he gazes jealously at the lone bright star on the end of the Little Bear's tail in hopes that some day he may gain possession of it and add it to his own. This is another reason why the "Guards" have been placed to watch the North Star. The feet of this Bear extend to three pairs of stars set nearly equidistant, although there are no stars for one of his forefeet. [Figure 15] The Arabs call these the "Doe's Leaps." The Bear's head is sprinkled with a scattered group of faint stars on a line with the bowl of the Dipper. This interesting creature is most impressive when in the springtime his shadowy, star-decked form crosses the sky near the zenith. He seems closest then and we cramp back our necks to get a better view of this ancient Bear about whom is twined so many legends. [Figure 16: "The Bear that prowled all night about the fold Of the North Star." --_Lowell._] Later, during the autumn months, he walks along the rim of the horizon in the north, but there too often, sad to relate, he is more than half obscured by the mists and fogs which hover about near the surface of the earth. Many attempts have been made to account for the ridiculous length of the brightly-jeweled tails of the star-bears. Richard A. Proctor in "Easy Star Lessons" suggests that as the star maps were arranged by astronomers who being aware of the many legends but who had themselves never seen a bear, naturally supposed the three bright stars in the handle of the Big Dipper to be Ursa Major's tail and so drew it. Since the Big Dipper was made part of Ursa Major or the Great Bear, the Little Dipper, whose seven principal stars resemble those of Ursa Major, was made part of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. Howe remarks in his "Descriptive Astronomy" that the "length of the little fellow's tail might be ascribed to environment." [Figure 17] 'Tis reasonable indeed. With the tip of it fastened to the North Star for a pivot it might stretch after being swung round for a few centuries. Perhaps, to go still further, this is the reason it is now so thin and therefore faint, and also why it is broken. The quaint theory of Dr. Thomas Hood, who wrote early in the 17th century, is also quoted as a possible reason for the length of the Great Bear's tail: "Imagine that Jupiter, fearing to come nigh unto her teeth layde hold on her tayle, and thereby drew her up into heaven, so shee of herself, being very weightie, and the distance from the earth to the heavens very great, there was great likelihood that her tayle must stretch. "Other reason know I none."