A very high stage of development in stellar science and mythology is reached among the Euahlayi tribe of the north-west district of New South Wales; anyone interested in the catasterisms of ancient mythology should read the full account given for this tribe. Venus is called ‘the Laughing Star’--the reason for her laughter is a coarse jest--, the Milky Way is an overflow of water. The stars are fires which the spirits of the dead have lit in their journey across the sky, and the dusky haze--i. e. presumably the dark patches without stars, which interest primitive peoples as much as the stars themselves--is the smoke of the fires. A waving dark shadow which you will see along the Milky Way is a crocodile. Two dark spots in Scorpio are devils who try to catch the spirits of the dead; sometimes they come down to earth and make whirlwinds. The Pleiades are seven sisters, ice-maidens; two have been dulled because a man caught them and tried to melt the ice off them: they succeeded in escaping to heaven, but do not shine so brightly as their sisters. The sword and belt of Orion are boys who on earth loved and followed the Pleiades, but after death were turned into stars. In order to remind people of them the Pleiades drop down some ice in the winter, and it is they who make the winter thunderstorms. Castor and Pollux are two hunters of long ago. Canopus is ‘the Mad Star’: he went mad on losing his loves. The Magellanic Clouds are ‘the Native Companions’, mother and daughter, pursued by Wurrawilberoo. ‘The Featherless Emu’ is a devil of water-holes, who goes every night to his sky-camp, ‘the Coal-pit’, i. e. the dark spot beside the Southern Cross. Corvus is a kangaroo, the Southern Crown an eagle-hawk, the Cross the first spirit-tree, a huge _yaraon_ which was the medium for the translation to the sky of the first man who died on earth. The white cockatoos which used to roost in the branches of this tree followed it and became the Pointers[525]. Ridley has obtained from the former chief of the Gingi tribe a long series of star-names. Especially noteworthy for the observation of the risings is the following. The Northern Crown is called _mullion wollai_, ‘the Eagle’s Nest’, when it stands exactly north on the meridian. Altair rises, and is called _mullion-ga_, ‘Eagle-in-action’, the eagle springs up to guard his nest. Later Vega rises, and is also called _mullion-ga_. The ‘holes’ are also well known. The dark spot at the foot of the Cross (the _zuu_ tree) is called an emu, the bird sits under the tree[526]. Elsewhere the star at the head of the Cross is an opossum fleeing from a pursuer--the ‘hole’ between the fore-feet of Centaurus and the Cross[527].