Muschenbroek, in his _Introduction to Natural Philosophy_, published in 1762, called attention to the fact that shooting-stars are more abundant in August than in any other part of the year. The annual periodicity of the maximum on the 9th or 10th of the month was first shown, however, by Quetelet, shortly after the discovery of the yearly return of the November phenomenon. Since that time an extraordinary number of meteors has been regularly observed, both in Europe and America, from the 7th to the 11th of the month; the greatest number being generally seen on the 10th. In 1839, Edward Heis, of Aix-la-Chapelle, saw 160 meteors in one hour on the night of the 10th. In 1842, he saw 34 in ten minutes at the time of the maximum. In 1861, on the night of the 10th, four observers, watching together at New Haven, saw in three hours--from ten to one o'clock--289 meteors. On the same night, at Natick, Massachusetts, two observers saw 397 in about seven hours. At London, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, on the night of August 9th, 1866, Samuel S. Gilson, Esq., watching alone, saw 72 meteors in forty minutes, and, with an assistant, 117 in one hour and fifteen minutes. Generally, the number observed per hour, at the time of the August maximum, is about nine times as great as on ordinary nights. Like the November meteors, they have a common "radiant;" that is, their tracks, when produced backward, meet, or nearly meet, in a particular point in the constellation Perseus. Of the 315 meteoric displays given in Quetelet's "Catalogue des principales apparitions d'étoiles filantes," 63 seem to have been derived from the August ring. The first 11 of these, with one exception, were observed in China during the last days of July, as follows: 1 A.D. 811, July 25th. 2 820, " 25th-30th. 3 824, " 26th-28th. 4 830, " 26th. 5 833, " 27th. 6 835, " 26th. 7 841, " 25th-30th. 8 924, " 27th-30th. 9 925, " 27th-30th. 10 926, " 27th-30th. 11 933, " 25th-30th. The next dates are 1243, August 2d, and 1451, August 7th. A comparison of these dates indicates a forward motion of the node of the ring along the ecliptic. This was pointed out several years since by Boguslawski. A similar motion of the node has also been found in the case of the November ring. That these points should be stationary is, indeed, altogether improbable. The nodes of all the planetary orbits, it is well known, have a secular variation.