fo CHELTFNHAM COLLEGE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
Reports from Sections. 
CARO 
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SECTION. 
peesdend "Do Bite Rouse. 
SMirdiarg 3 ADAMI. 
| URING the school year two lectures have been given, and 
two expeditions made. The first lecture, given in 
the Lent Term, was upon the Man in the Moon. 
Examples of this legend were given from several 
European nations. In all of them he is a Sabbath breaker and in 
most of them a thief. Was this story then invented since the 
introduction of the Christian Sunday? To find out the answer to 
this question, a number of Savage myths were passed in review. 
What is the Moon, and how did it get into the sky? The 
Moon is sometimes a bundle of lighted reeds, thrown up into the 
air to keep the animals from treading on each other’s toes. Or it is 
a manufactured article, made in a workshop, and carried all night 
by adumb old manunderhisarm. Orhe is a living being, a woman 
oraman. The Sun and Moon are brother and sister ; or they are 
husband and wife, and the stars their children. The Sun eats all 
his children up (what we see is his stomach, full of them); and 
the Moon goes into mourning when he does so. By degrees 
she gets cheerful (and round) again ; then the Sun eats some more, 
The spots on the Moon are explained as all manner of things ; 
ashes smeared on_ her face, groves of trees, a toad, a cat, a 
frog, a rabbit, a man, a woman, a haystack, a bundle of sticks, and 
a cabbage—what not, indeed ! the list is not half done. The eclipse 
give rise to the most astonishing stories. Mostlyit isa monster trying’ 
to eat the Moon, and he must be frightened away with all possible 
