The Euahlayi tribe also connect the Pleiades with the cold: they call the stars ‘the Ice-maidens’, imagine them to be covered with ice, and say that in winter they let ice drop on the earth and also cause the winter thunderstorms[553]. Another tribe danced in order to win the favour of the Pleiades; the constellation is worshipped by one body as the giver of rain, but should the rain be deferred, instead of blessings curses are apt to be bestowed on it[554]. The Arunta say that the Pleiades are seven maidens who ascended into heaven, but after many wanderings came back to Okaralyi, where they again gathered _ugokuta_ fruit and danced in the women’s dance. During this period the Pleiades are not to be seen in the sky, i. e. it is the time between the evening setting and the morning rising. Here therefore the constellation is connected with a phase of Nature, and the whole is mythologically explained. According to another Arunta myth the Pleiades are maidens who had danced at a circumcision ceremony. After they had taken part in all the ceremonies in which to-day the assistance of women is still requisite at this festival, they went back to their native district, whence they ascended to heaven and are now to be seen as the Pleiades. Not without reason did the circumcision most frequently take place at the season when the Pleiades rise at evening in the east and remain in the sky all night long (this is the case in the summer months), so that this prominent constellation was regarded as a spectator of the festivities connected with the rite[555]. The Pleiades therefore serve to determine the time of the feast, and this circumstance is again invested with a myth. A tribe of Western Victoria connected certain constellations with the seasons. The Pleiades are young maidens playing to a corroboree-party of young men, represented by the belt and sword of Orion. Aldebaran, ‘the Rose-crested Cockatoo’, is an old man keeping time for the dancers. This group corresponds with the months of November and December. As the year advances Castor and Pollux appear: they are two hunters who pursue and kill a kangaroo, Capella. The Mirage is the smoke of the fire at which the kangaroo is cooked by the successful hunters. Those two groups set forth the period of the summer. The breaking up of a prolonged drought is thus explained:--Berenice’s Hair, which culminates in March, is a tree with three big branches. When a shower of rain has come, every drop is nevertheless sucked up by the dusty earth. A small cavity formed at the junction of the three branches has however retained a little water, and here it is imagined some birds drink. The winter stars are Arcturus--who is held in great respect since he has taught the natives to find the pupae of the wood-ants, which are an important article of food in August and September--and Vega, who has taught them to find the eggs of the _mallee_-hen, which are also an important article of food in October. The natives also know