soon be included, so that the following month follows directly upon the preceding; many peoples say, like the Banyankole, that the month lasts 29 days: for 28 days the moon is visible, and for one day hidden[635]. As always, therefore, the concrete phenomenon is the starting point. Here, however, not only the varying shape of the moon, not only its phases, are taken into account, but also, as in the case of the sun and the stars, its position in the sky. On the analogy of the rising and setting of the stars the new moon can be described as the evening setting, the full moon as the evening rising or morning setting, and the disappearing of the moon as the morning rising of that planet. A description of this nature, of course without the above scientific terminology, does occur, but in isolated instances. In the above-mentioned Ho text a further passage runs:--“When the moon appears and comes nearer, we say ‘it stands overhead’. After this it stands in the middle (of the sky). When the moon does not rise until after night-fall we say that it ‘stands on the edge (of the sky)’. When it does not rise until very long after night-fall we say ‘it shines unto day-break’. When the moon is once more on the wane, it will not be long before another appears.” Other expressions are:--‘the moon falls upon the forest’, i. e. stands low on the horizon, ‘it sleeps in the open air’, when it is in the sky at day-break[636]. At the south of Lake Nyassa the day of the month is denoted by indicating the position of the moon in the sky at day-break[637]. Of the Seminole of Florida it is reported that the months seem to be divided simply into days, and that the latter are, at least in part, described by reference to the successive positions of the moon in the sky at sunset. When our informant asked a native how long he would remain at his present camp, he answered by pointing to the new moon in the west, and sweeping his hand from west to east to the spot where the moon would be when he should go home. He meant to answer, “About ten days hence”[638]. To indicate the day by the position of the moon in the sky is however exceptional, and it is just as exceptional for descriptions of the day according to the position of the moon to be consistently carried out. The Ewe tribes also have expressions which refer to the shapes of the moon. These different shapes have in general attracted most attention, and serve for time-reckoning. At first the phases of the moon are distinguished only roughly, but greater and greater refinement of observation is ever being attained, until every day of the moon’s revolution is described by a name, and the names not only refer to the phases of the moon but also indicate its position in the sky.