238 Iff STARRY REALMS. 



all events belonging to the grand shower. These are 

 stragglers, as it were, from the mighty host which visits 

 us from time to time. 



Astronomers have a special name for this group of 

 November meteors. They are called the " Leonids." To 

 explain why this name has been given, and why it is 

 appropriate, we must dwell on an important part of the 

 phenomena of the shower, to which we have not yet 

 alluded ; and this we shall now do. 



Among the constellations there is a fine sickle- shaped 

 group, forming a part of Leo, one of the signs of the 

 Zodiac. That part of the sky defined by Lee is curiously 

 related to the meteors of the 12th to the 14th of Novem- 

 ber. Every shooting star truly belonging to that great 

 shower pursued a track across the heavens, the direction 

 of which, if carried back far enough, was always found 

 to pierce through the sickle of Leo. Indeed, the paths 

 of all the meteors formed a set of rays spreading away 

 from that one point in the constellation. An invari- 

 able characteristic of this particular shower is its connec- 

 tion with the constellation of Leo, hence the appropriate- 

 ness of the name of Leonids. 



And now for the explanation and it is a remarkable 

 one which astronomers have been able to give of the 

 annual appearance to some extent of the Leonids, and of 

 their occasional majestic displays. 



Picture to yourself a mighty host of small particles out 

 in space. They are organized into a great shoal, but they 

 are so sparsely distributed that each particle is perhaps a 

 dozen miles away from its neighbours on each side. How 

 large each of these particles is we cannot indeed say. No 



