I 4 2 
NATURE STUDY. 
its name will never forget it. It is too splendid to need a 
description, and when it is on the meridian, as now, there 
is presented to the gaze of the enraptured beholder the 
most magnificent group of stars the firmament affords. As 
the celestial equator passes through the center of this con- 
1 stellation, the star Mintaka being less than half a degree 
from it, this group is visible to all the habitable world. It 
is no wonder, then, that this group, more than any other, 
has been the theme of the poet’s art. 
“First next the Twins, see great Orion rise, 
His arms extended stretch o’er half the skies; 
His stride as large, and with a steady pace, 
He marches on, and measures a va>t space; 
On each broad shoulder a bright star displayed, 
And three obliquely grace his hanging blade. 
In his vast head, immersed in boundless spheres, 
Three stars, less bright, but yet as great, he bears, 
But farther off removed, their splendor’s lost; 
Thus graced and armed he leads the starrv host.” —Manilius 
The mythological accounts of Orion vary considerably, 
one of which is as follows: Orion was the son of Neptune 
and Queen Bury ale, a famous Amazonian huntress, and 
possessing the disposition of his mother, he became the 
greatest hunter in the world, and even boasted that there 
was not an animal on earth which he could not conquer. 
To punish this vanity, it is said that a scorpion sprung 
up out of the earth and bit his foot so that he died. At 
the request of Diana he was placed among the stars, direct¬ 
ly opposite to the scorpion that caused his death. 
Orion rises at noon about the tenth of March, and so 
was supposed by the ancient mariners to be the cause of, 
at least accompanied bjq great rains and storms. In con¬ 
sequence it became a source of much dread to the early 
navigators. Virgil refers to this in at least two places, as 
when iEneas accounts for the storm which cast him on the 
African coast while on his way to Italy. 
“To that blest shore we steered our destined way, 
When sudden, dire Orion rous’d the sea; 
All charged with tempests rose the baleful star, 
And on our navy pour’d his watery war.” 
