These facts being so, there is nothing strange in an account which unfortunately comes from a writer whose evidence in other respects is open to grave doubt. We are told that Andy, a native of New South Wales, found the statement that the sun is the source of heat ridiculous, and said:--“If the sun makes the warm weather come in summer-time, why does he not make the winter warm, for he is seen every day?” The influence which produces heat, in the belief of the natives, accompanies the Pleiades. When these are visible at a certain altitude above the horizon, it is spring, _begagewog_; when they rise to their highest altitude, it is summer, _winuga_; when in autumn they sink down again towards the horizon, it is _domda_ (‘autumn’); in winter they are barely visible or are lost to view altogether; it is then winter (_magur_), and cold. The ordinary stars have no kind of influence on the seasons, but simply the Pleiades[616]. The account agrees very well with what is otherwise known of the stellar science of the Australians, and is perfectly credible. A precisely similar story comes from the other side of the globe. At the beginning of the 18th century, when the Lapps were still heathens, one of the questions which a missionary among these people put to them about their gods was:--“Have you prayed the Pleiades to warm the weather?” In accordance with this a Lapp myth relates that a servant driven out on a very cold night by a cruel master was saved by the Pleiades. One of the Lapp names for these stars, which evidently points to this idea, is ‘the Sheep-skins’[617]. The Greeks had the same belief in Sirius as the cause of the summer heat.[618]