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NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



[17:1— Jan.. 1921 



Besides the many poems and myths, both ancient and modem, 

 concerning this jeweled dipper, we find November known as the 

 Pleiad month. In this month are observed many memorial festivals 

 from remote antiquity. The Feast of the Lanterns — a great 

 national festival of Japan — All Hallow 'Eve, All Saints' Day, and 

 All Soiils' Day, are supposed to be survival of such memorial 

 festivals. Many temples were oriented to the seven stars. The 

 most famous of these was the celebrated Parthenon. It has also 

 been suggested that the "tors" — names given to British hilltops — 

 were connected with the worship by the Druids of this little group 

 of stars. Surely they have been given more attention than 

 any other similar group in all the sky. 



Orion 



Winifred Bailor 



"Eastward beyond the region of the Bull 



Stands great Orion; whoso kens not him in cloudless night 



Gleaming aloft, shall cast his eyes in vain 



To find a brighter sign in all the heaven." 



From late October to May Orion, the most brilliant of the 

 southern constellations appears in our southern heavens. It 

 cannot be mistaken for it contains more bright 

 stars than any other single group, and has the 

 distinction of being the only constellation 

 visible in our latitude that contains as many as 

 two stars of the first degree of brilliancy. 



There are several myths about Orion, which 

 makes his history somewhat shadowy and 

 uncertain, but all agree that he was a great 

 hunter, and received a place of honor in the 

 heavens. The Hebrews claimed that he was 

 no less a person than the mighty Nimrod him- 

 self. The ancient people saw him still at his 

 usual occupation, for in the sky he still hunts 

 the angry bull. 



Perhaps your imagination will lead you to 

 see the form of the great hunter but I must 

 confess I can only see a parallelogram in which 

 there is a row of three very bright stars, which 

 form the belt, and from this hangs a curved line of stars forming 



Orion, the three large 

 stars in a line form- 

 ing the belt, the 

 curved line of 

 smaller stars be- 

 low forming the 

 sword, Betelgeuse 

 above, Rigel below 



