ITUSA MAJOR, " the Greater Bear," and URSA 31EcOR, " the Lesser Bear," are two celebrated constellations in the northern hemisphere of the heavens. Ursa .Major was distinguished as early as the time of Homer by the names Arktos, " the Bear," and Hamaza, "the Wagon," the vivid imagination of the Greeks discovering a fanciful resemblance between these objects and the group of brilliant stars in this constellation. The Roman name Ursa was a translation of the Greek Arktos; the Romans also called its seven bright stars the Septemtriones, " the seven plowing oxen," whence the adjective aeptentrionalis came to signify north. The common names throughout Europe for these seven stars are " the Plow," " Charles's Wain," " the Wagon"—evidently derived from the classical epithets above mentioned. When the constellation of Ursa Minor was generally recognized, the adjective megale, " great," was annexed by the Greeks, and mgjor, "greater," by the Romans, to the name of this constellation. The remarkable group of stars in the hinder part of the Great Bear being within 40° of the north pole,' never sinks below the horizon of any place in a higher n. latitude than 40°, a peculiar ity alluded to by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. It contains a considerable number of stars, 17 of which are easily visible by the naked eye; but of these, only one (a) is of the first magnitude, two (fi and y) of the second, and eight (among whom are 6, e, .9, and ??) of the third. Of the seven stars constituting " the Plow," a and /3 are known as " the Pointers," from their use in detecting the pole-star (q.v.). A line drawn from the pole
star through 77 of the Great Bear, and produced its own length, passes close to the star Arcturus of the first magnitude.— Ursa Minor is less prominent in the heavens. It was also Arktos and .Thamaxa among the Greeks, and Aretus and Ursa among the Romans, from the close resemblance of its chief star-group to that of Ursa Major; hut was, besides, distinctively denominated Kynosoura or Kynosouris, and Cynosura, " the Dog's Tail," from the circular sweep, resembling the curl of a dog's tail, formed by three of the stars in it. The star a in the extremi y of the tail of the Little Bear, at present the pole star (q.v.), is the brightest in the constellation, though only of the third magnitude.
According to the later mythical stories of the Greeks, Ursa Major was the metamor phosis of Callisto, one of Diana's nymphs, who, having violated her vow, and being transformed by her indignant mistress into a bear, was slain by her son Areas, and after ward transferred to the heavens as a constellation by Jupiter; Areas being at the same time metamorphosed into Bootes, the Arktophylax, " Bear-warden," of the Greeks. According to the other but less common legend, which represents the seven stars of Ursa Major as the oxen of Icarius, Arktophylax became Bootes, " the Ox-driver."