If you draw an imaginary line across the two stars forming the backbone of the Bear, starting from the end nearest the tail, and continue it onward for a good distance, you will come to a very bright star called Capella, which you will know, because near it are three little ones in a triangle. Now, Capella means a goat, so the small ones are called the kids. In winter Capella gets high up into the sky, and then there is to be seen below her a little cluster called the Pleiades. There is nothing else like this in the whole sky. It is formed of six stars, as it appears to persons of ordinary sight, and these stars are of the sixth magnitude, the lowest that can be seen by the naked eye. But though small, they are set so close together, and appear so brilliant, twinkling like diamonds, that they are one of the most noticeable objects in the heavens. A legend tells that there were once seven stars in the Pleiades clearly visible, and that one has now disappeared. This is sometimes spoken of as 'the lost Pleiad,' but there does not seem to be any foundation for the story. In old days people attached particular holiness or luck to the number seven, and possibly, when they found that there were only six stars in this wonderful group, they invented the story about the seventh. As the Pleiades rise, a beautiful reddish star of the first magnitude rises beneath them. It is called Aldebaran, and it, as well as the Pleiades, forms a part of the constellation of Taurus the bull. In England we can see in winter below Aldebaran the whole of the constellation of Orion, one of the finest of all the constellations, both for the number of the bright stars it contains and for the extent of the sky it covers. Four bright stars at wide distances enclose an irregular four-sided space in which are set three others close together and slanting downwards. Below these, again, are another three which seem to fall from them, but are not so bright. The figure of Orion as drawn in the old representations of the constellations is a very magnificent one. The three bright stars form his belt, and the three smaller ones the hilt of his sword hanging from it. [Illustration: ORION AND HIS NEIGHBOURS.]