reported of the Caffres. Their months are named e. g. from the first cry of the cuckoo, the flowering of the erythusia, the dust in the dry season, midwinter, and since all these phenomena may appear at somewhat different dates, even the Caffre astrologers do not know what moon they are really in. The first appearance of the Pleiades just before sunrise always rectifies the confusion[866]. Even peoples who have a developed, astronomically regulated, lunisolar calendar sometimes have recourse to the natural phases in order to rectify it. In Bali not only were the stars observed but also the flowering of certain plants, or even the date when the white ants got their wings, in order to rectify the lunar calendar[867]. The months of the Bataks of Sumatra are regulated by the constellation Scorpio[868]: the magicians, who control the calendar, are not certain as to the position of the months, but look for general points of reference in the phenomena of Nature. Thus, for instance, the dates of certain migratory birds are known: they come in the fourth and go in the first month. In the third month a black flying-ant is accustomed to appear in great numbers. The presence of the bird of prey _lali piuan_ makes known the sixth and seventh months. The bird _sosoit_ sings in the eleventh month, and the turtle-dove is silent in the eighth. The west monsoon proclaims the third, storms are very frequent in the eleventh and twelfth[869]. Many peoples slip over the difficulties, they do not properly know of how many moons the year consists: such peoples are the Dyaks[870], the Warumbi of Central Africa[871], the Ibo-speaking peoples[872], the Algonquin[873]. But if a definite series of months is established, without a vacant interval such as occurs in the case of some peoples, the number of months naturally becomes 12 or 13. Even in this case the people sometimes let matters go as they will, as is reported of the Yukaghir. The people having been christianised, says our authority, it is now difficult to say whether the ancient Yukaghir made some adjustment by adding a month to accommodate their lunar year to the solar one. It seems to me, from the answers which I received from the Yukaghir to my inquiries, that this point did not interest them. Generally a month is the time from one new moon to another, but it did not matter to them whether twelve such months made up a full cycle of the year or not. When it was necessary they simply ignored some of the names of months, being far ahead[874]. The Koryak have twelve lunar months, and the first one begins at the time of the winter solstice and corresponds to our December. Yet they are very little troubled by the fact that in the interval between two winter solstices an extra new moon may occur[875]. The very perplexity described above implies a great advance, viz. the recognition of the difficulties, which is the first stage towards mastering them.