Westward from Cancer we see the great group of mighty stars and constellations of which Orion is the chief and centre, but Sirius the brightest jewel. They are now declining rapidly toward the horizon, and will be better studied at another season. They include, besides Orion, Gemini, Auriga, Taurus, Canis Major, and Canis Minor, and will be found more favorably situated in the chart devoted to the sky at the Winter Solstice. For the present, then, we turn our eyes to the northern central part of the vernal heavens. There, almost overhead, shines the “Great Bear,” Ursa Major, always recognizable by the remarkable figure of the “Great Dipper,” or, as they prefer to call it in Old England--where brimming dippers of sparkling water lifted dripping from the “old oaken bucket” are not so familiar as in New England--the “Wain,” or the “Plough.” We have already remarked that at this season the Bear has his feet uppermost in the middle of the sky and his back downward toward the pole. The Dipper, too, is now upside down, drained of its last imaginary drop, though its stars may be the more brilliant for that. The figure of the bowl is situated on the flank of the Bear, and its handle represents his impossible tail. Six of its stars are of the second magnitude, and one, at the junction of the bowl and the handle, of the third. Their Greek letters, beginning at the northwestern corner of the bowl, are, _Alpha_ (α), _Beta_ (β), _Gamma_ (γ), _Delta_ (δ), _Epsilon_ (ε), _Zeta_ (ζ), and _Eta_ (η), and their names, in the same order, _Dubhe_, _Merak_, _Phæd_, _Megrez_, _Alioth_, _Mizar_, and _Benetnasch_. I once knew a country school-teacher who thought that he had acquired a pretty good knowledge of astronomy when he had learned these names by heart. He certainly knew more of uranography than most people. The names seem to be all of Arabic origin, and at the risk of destroying their charm I will give, from Allen’s _Star Names_, their probable significations. _Dubhe_ means simply “Bear”; _Merak_ (sometimes _Mirak_), “Loin”; _Phæd_ (sometimes _Phecda_ or _Phad_), “Thigh”; _Megrez_, “Root of the Tail”; _Alioth_, meaning uncertain, probably something to do with the tail; _Mizar_ (originally _Mirak_), “Girdle”; and _Benetnasch_ (sometimes _Alcaid_), “Chief of the Mourners,” from an Arabic phrase having that signification. The star Megrez, now so much fainter than the others, was once as bright as any of them. It has faded within three hundred years.