Select, if possible, a high place, where the eyes can range round the whole horizon unobstructed. Then try to seize the entire view at once, as one glances for the first time at the map of a new country. Get the _ensemble_ by sweeping all around the sky, not pausing to note details, but catching at a glance the location of the brighter stars and those that form striking groups. Note where the Milky Way runs, a faint, silvery zone at this season, arched across the western half of the firmament, hanging like starry gossamers in places, brilliant in the northwest, but becoming fainter as it dips toward the southwestern horizon--a mere anticipation of its summer splendor, hiding its light and fading away as it approaches the imperial presence of Sirius. Notice the great hexagon of first magnitude stars that surrounds Orion in the west--Sirius, Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Castor and Pollux, and Procyon marking the angles, and Betelgeuse glittering not far from the centre of the figure. Observe Regulus with the “Sickle” of Leo on the meridian. Look for the glimmer of the “Beehive” in Cancer, between Gemini and Leo, and for the pentangular head of Hydra beneath it. Still lower you will see the reddish gleam of the starry serpent’s heart, Cor Hydræ, or Alphard, and then, running eastward, and dipping ever nearer the horizon, the long, winding line of his stars passing under the overset cup of Crater and the quadrilateral of Corvus, the “Crow,” until they disappear, unended, in the southeast, for from mid-heaven to the horizon there is not space enough to display all of these beautiful coils, which take a kind of life as you watch them.