3^6 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



is not enmity towards the cats, but a 

 form of appreciation? It must be be- 

 cause of this difficulty that the Audu- 

 bon Societies, with all their strenuous 

 efforts in behalf of birds, say so little, 

 and make no efforts for laws to govern 

 the cats. Not a state has a law that 

 regards the cat as personal property, 

 and regulates its care. 



So far as we know, not a Humane 

 Society, with all the talk about loving 

 cats and loving birds, has made any 

 attempts to obtain a law to regulate 



cats in relation to birds. Of all forms- 

 of animal life the extremes of care and 

 of neglect are the widest with cats. 

 Some are fondled and cared for with 

 every attention that love can give. 

 Others are neglected and deserted, in> 

 the most cruel manner. This magazine 

 does not believe that one evil can be 

 cured by citing another. It believes in 

 the proper appreciation and regulation 

 of cats and birds and men and boys — 

 and. if need be, of women and girls. 



The Heavens in April. 



BY PROF. ERTC DOOLlTTLE OF THE UNI- 

 VERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



The most prominent position in the 

 evening sky is now occupied by the 

 bright Leo, which this month reaches 

 its culmination and shines out high up 

 from the ground, exactly in the south. 

 The six stars at the western end of this 

 group form a very perfect figure of a 

 Sickle, the brightest star of all being 

 the great Regulus, a yellowish-white 

 sun which has a companion of a re- 

 markably deep blue color that is itself 

 a double sun. Regulus is so very near 

 the yearly path traced out by our sun 

 in its annual journey among the stars 

 that when our sun reaches this point in 

 its path, were the star not rendered in- 

 visible to us by the over-powering bril- 

 liance, we would see it almost graze 

 the upper edge of the round sun's disc. 

 This passage will occur this year on 

 next August 22; when the sun is pass- 

 ing through the Sickle the harvest days 

 will begin. It is said that the whole 

 constellation was called the Lion be- 

 cause while the sun was in this part 

 of the heavens the lions left the desert 

 for the banks of the Nile, where they 

 could find relief from the summer's 

 heat. 



THE APRIL STARS. 



Above Leo we now see the Great 

 Dipper shining down on us from almost 



the highest part of the heavens. Below 

 this is the great Bootes, who with up- 

 stretched arms is driving the Bear be- 

 fore him, and just below this very large 

 and striking constellation we can now 

 for the first time clearly see the beauti- 

 ful and delicate little Crown bestowed 

 by Theseus upon Ariadne. The faint 

 stars in the rather vacant part of the 

 heavens below the hollow of the Dip- 

 per's handle make up the constellation 

 of the Hunting Dogs, held by Bootes 

 in his "Leash of sidereal fire." of which 

 the brightest, at A, Figure 1, is a 

 beautiful double star in a small tele- 

 scope. Below these is the delicate 

 filmy cluster known as the Maiden's 

 Hair. At the point B, almost exactly 

 in a straight line between A and Arc- 

 turns, and nearly midway between 

 these stars is a beautiful though rather 

 faint cluster of many thousand? of stars 

 packed closely together, and it is very 

 remarkable that no less than one in 

 every ten of these distant suns is a 

 variable star. 



Below Corona, the large group Her- 

 cules has now emerged wholly from 

 the ground, and it is at the point M in 

 this constellation, nearly in a straight 

 line between the stars C and D, that 

 there is the most magnificent star clus- 

 ter which can be seen in the northern 

 heavens. This is even visible to the 

 naked eye as a faint, light spot on the 





