THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 75 



the navigators of the time as almost alive. And the dolphins, eagles, 

 ravens, and dragons which threatened England from the prows of 

 the invading Danish fleet have had their prototypes in almost every 

 nation that has betaken itself to the sea. 



Not less suggestive are the more general aspects of the process. 

 Our ancestor called the earth's satellite the " moon," or " measurer," 

 because it served him as a divider of time. The familiar grains of 

 wheat and barley which he harvested became the units of his meas- 

 ures. So the names of his seasons were based on the fall of the 

 leaves, the reappearance of ^articular stars, or the periodical inunda- 

 tions upon which he depended for his food. The most primitive 

 method in chronology is that which enables man to orient himself in 

 the world of time by associating particular lunations with vicissitudes 

 of weather, with seasonal aspects of vegetation, and with the con- 

 stantly changing sights and sounds of the animal world. In the 

 calendar of the Crees,* for example, we find such designations as 

 " duck-month," " frog-moon," " leaf -moon," " berries-ripe-month," 

 " buffalo-rutting moon," " leaves-entirely-changed," " leaves-in-the- 

 trees," " fish-catching-moon," " moon-that-strikes-the-earth cold," 

 " coldest-moon," " ice-thawing-moon," " eagles-seen-moon." So in 

 the calendars of Central America and Mexico,! the months are named 

 variously after the arrival of birds, the blossoming of flowers, the 

 blowing of winds, the return of mosquitoes, and the appearance of 

 fishes. The Greeks constantly used the movements of birds to mark 

 the seasons; the arrival of the swallow and kite were thus noted. 

 Hesiod tells us how the cry of the crane signaled the departure of 

 winter, while the setting of the Pleiades gave notice to the plow- 

 man when to begin his work. The Incas ^ called Venus " the hairy," 

 on account of the brightness of her rays, just as the Peruvians named 

 her the " eight-hour torch," or " the twilight lamp," from the time 

 of her shining. One at least of the three portions into which the 

 Greeks divided their night received its name trepl \v^ywv a<a<? 

 from the social custom of lighting the lamps at dusk. For whole 

 races the departure of the sun made night a time of danger, and man 

 did his best to lessen the mystery of the heavens by filling their 

 obscure depths with the figures of animals and heroes, or by likening 

 their shining lines of cosmic cloud to a road or highway for the march 

 of beings celestial and terrestrial. Thus, for the speakers of Sanskrit 

 the Milky Way was "The Path of the Gods"; the Lithuanians 

 dubbed it " The Bird Koad "; in Low German it is known as " The 



* Contributions to the Ethnology and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri 

 Valley. Dr. F. V. Hayden, 1862. 



f The Native Calendars of Central America and Mexico. Daniel G. Brinton. 

 $ Popular Science Monthly, vol. xlv, article Astronomy of the Incas. 



