The Hottentots call the just emerging, hardly yet perceptible crescent by a name which means ‘unripe’ and is also used to denote a premature fruit. The slender shining crescent, in which the moon as it were ‘revives’, is called by a name with that significance. The first two quarters have two names common to both of them, ‘the moon which becomes great or old’, and ‘the moon which becomes wise’. In the last quarter only the slender crescent is distinguished: it is called ‘the dying moon’[670]. In exceptional cases no name for the full moon is given, but we can hardly conclude that such a name was wanting. An Australian tribe of the North Territory calls the full moon _igul_, the half-moon _idadad_, and the crescent of the new moon _wurdu_[671]. The terminology in Central Australia is far richer:--_atninja quirka utnamma_ = new moon, _a. q. iwuminta_ = half-moon, _a. urterurtera_ = three-quarter moon, _a. aluquirta_ = full moon[672]. No terms whatever are given for the waning moon, but that they were entirely lacking is doubtful, though it is also to be doubted whether terms for the half and three-quarter moon cannot also be applied to the waning moon. It should be noted that in Central Australia, as the words shew, the new and the full moon are the original phases. The observation and naming of the phases of the moon long remain quite unsystematic. The names are mingled with terms arising from other circumstances. Of the Thonga of S. E. Africa it is reported:--When the first quarter appears, the moon is said to _thwasa_, a Zulu word which corresponds to _tjhama_ in Thonga, and is very much used in the terminology of possessions. Eight days later it is said to _basa_, to be white or brilliant; full moon is said to _sima_ or _lata batjongwana_, to put the little children to bed, because when it rises it finds them already sleeping on their mats. The wane is called _kushwela dambo_, the moon is then found by the rising sun to be still in the sky, not having yet dipped below the horizon. When at last it disappears, it is _munyama_, the obscurity, the moon is said to _fa_, to have died[673]. The position of the moon in the sky is also taken into consideration, but not to such an extent as among the Ewe tribes[674]; the latter however are also acquainted with another terminology. Full moon is called ‘the moon fits’, i. e. nothing of it is wanting, new moon ‘the moon is dead’. In the first quarter and at the half-moon they say: ‘the moon is half round’ or ‘falls upon the wood’, i. e. stands low on the horizon; shortly before full moon ‘the moon is about to become complete’, ‘is on the increase’; after the full moon ‘the moon is about to wane’; three days after full moon ‘the moon has cheated some people’, since it leaves in the lurch those who wish to play in the evening; in the last quarter ‘the moon is like the tail of the cock’ or ‘sleeps in the open’, since it stands in the sky at day-break[675]. For