144 
NATURE STUDY. 
brightest star in the whole heavens, Sirius, the Dog Star. 
About ten degrees below Sirius, and somewhat farther 
eastward, is a group of three stars, forming a right-angled 
triangle with the hypothenuse nearly parallel with the hori¬ 
zon. These, with Sirius and the fainter stars between and 
adjoining, to the number of thirty-one, constitute the con¬ 
stellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. 
In the remote ages of the world, when every man was 
his own astronomer, the rising and setting of Sirius, or the 
Dog Star, as it was called, was watched with deep and va¬ 
rious solicitude. The ancient Thebans, who first culti¬ 
vated astronomy in Egypt, determined the length of the 
year by the number of its risings. The Egyptians watched 
its rising with mingled feelings of hope and fear; as it was 
ominous to them of agricultural prosperity or blighting 
drouth. It foretold to them the rising of the Nile, which 
they called Siris, and admonished them when to sow. The 
Romans were accustomed to sacrifice yearly a dog to Siri¬ 
us, to render him propitious in his influence upon their 
herds and fields. 
It was a common belief among the nations of the East 
generally, that the rising of Sirius would result in great 
heat upon the earth. This was voiced by the poet when 
he said: 
“Parched was the grass, and blighted was the corn; 
Nor ’scape the beasts; for Sirius from on high, 
With pestilential heat infects the sky.” 
This same belief is shared by a great many people of the 
present day, modified to some extent by the the additional 
idea that dogs are more likely to “gomad,” i. e., be afflict¬ 
ed with hydrophobia, than on other days. Of course a little 
reflection will show that there is not the slightest founda¬ 
tion for such a belief, as Sirius rises and sets every day of 
the year, being invisible in the summer time because of the 
superior brilliancy of the sunlight. 
