The great majority of the names refer to natural phenomena and country occupations. The variety of the series need not be specially pointed out, the numerous asterisks shew the fluctuation and variation of the nomenclature between two or even three months. Much is explained, as is indicated by the mention of the countries in which the names originate, by the extremely various climatic conditions prevailing in the countries occupied by the Slavs, and a further explanation of the variety is to be sought in the well-known phenomenon that when the seasons correspond only imperfectly with the months, the equalisation is carried out sometimes with one month, sometimes with another. It must be so, since among the same people the same name describes various months. Pairs of months are however rare: ‘the big’ and ‘the little’ _sêčko_ (January and February), Bulg.; ‘the little grass-month’ (March) and the ‘big’ one (April or May), Slovak; the little and big ‘cochineal’ months (June and July), Czech, distinguished in the calendar of to-day as _červen_ and _červenec_ (diminutive), so that the names have changed places; and _žătvar_, ‘reaper’ (July) and _žătvarskijat_, ‘harvest-month’ (August), Bulgarian (Kazarow). Here also must be placed _zarev_ and cognates, Old Bulg., Russ., Czech, which is inchoative and means ‘beginning of the lowing (the rutting)’, and _rjujin_ and cognates, Old Bulg., Slovak, Serb., Old Russian, Czech, ‘the lowing’, i. e. the full rutting and therefore the second rutting-month. The character of all these names is only too obvious. Hence the fact that the word for month is very rarely added, though it appears in the translation. These names have proved so vigorous that in Czech and Polish they have ousted the Latin names (with the exception of May). In the same way I give a summary of the German names of months, from the abundant compilations more particularly of Weinhold and Ebner. Here too I make no claim to completeness,--some names have been deliberately omitted--my purpose being only to give an idea of the variety and instability of the names. To this end I choose the forms which are most easily intelligible.