We turn next to Taurus. On account of the beauty of Aldebaran and the Pleiades, this constellation hardly falls behind Orion in attractiveness. Aldebaran (Arabic _Al Dabaran_, the “Follower”) is the chief star of the constellation and the leader of the group called the Hyades, a name which Lewis derives from the Greek word ὕειυ, to rain, because their rising was connected with the beginning of the rainy season. Popularly the group is known as the “Letter A,” whose form it imitates, although it is usually seen nearly upside down. The letter V would perhaps better represent our view of it. It is a glorious sight with an opera-glass. Aldebaran is distinctly red, but of a peculiar tone, which has frequently been called rose-red. Its redness is certainly unlike the orange tone of Betelgeuse. When gazing at it in a fanciful mood, I have often likened it imaginatively to an apple-blossom in color. Flammarion has translated the Hebrew name of this star, _Aleph_, as “God’s Eye.” Taurus, he says, is the most ancient of the signs of the zodiac, the first that the Precession of the Equinoxes placed at the head of the signs, and he adds that observational astronomy appears to have been founded at the epoch when the Vernal Equinox lay close to Aldebaran--_i. e._, about three thousand years before the commencement of our era. The beauty of Aldebaran, the singularity of the figure shaped by its attendants, the charming effect produced by the flocks of little stars, the Deltas and the Thetas, in the middle of the arms of the letter, and the richness of the stellar groundwork of the cluster, all combine to make the Hyades one of the most memorable objects in the sky; but no one can describe it, because the starry heavens cannot be put into words. Terrestrial analogies, and phrases applied to things seen on the earth, utterly fail to convey the impressions made by such spectacles. I can only again urge the reader to examine the Hyades with a good opera-glass on a clear night when there is no moonlight to interfere. Some one once said, “If you would test your appreciation of poetry, read Milton’s _Lycidas_”; so I would say, If you would know how you are affected by nature’s masterpieces in the sky, look at the Hyades. The stars Theta (θ) and Sigma (σ) are both naked-eye doubles for sharp eyes. Try if you can see both of the pairs.