Reflections upon the uses of the moon not unnaturally lead our thoughts to some matters that may be regarded as abuses. These mainly take the form of superstitions, erroneous beliefs in the moon’s influence over terrestrial conditions, and occasionally of erroneous ideas upon the moon’s functions as a luminary. The first-mentioned are almost beneath notice, for they include such mythical suspicions as that the moon influences human sanity and other affections of mind and body; that the moon’s rays have a decomposing effect upon organic matter; that they produce blindness by shining upon a sleeper’s eyes; that the moon determines the hours of human death, which is supposed to occur with the change of the tide, etc. All such, having no foundation on fact, are put beyond our consideration. The third matter we have mentioned may also be dismissed in a very few words. The erroneous ideas upon the moon’s functions as a luminary, to which we allude, are those which are manifested by poets and painters, and even historians, who do not hesitate to bring the moon upon a scene in any form and at any time they please without reference to actual lunar circumstances. It is no uncommon thing to see, in a picture representing an evening scene, a moon introduced which can only be seen in the morning—a waning moon instead of a waxing one; and astronomical critics have, indeed, caught artists so far tripping as to put a moon in a picture representing some event that occurred upon a date when the moon was new, and therefore invisible. Writers take the same liberties very frequently. A newspaper correspondent, during the Franco-Prussian war, described the full moon as shining upon a scene of desolation on a particular night, when really there was no moon to be seen. One of the most flagrant cases of this kind, however, occurs in Wolfe’s ballad on “The death of Sir John Moore,” where it is written that the hero was buried “By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light.” But the interment actually took place at a time when the moon was out of sight. We mention these abuses of the moon in the hope of promoting a better observance of the moon’s luminary office. They who wish to bring the moon upon a scene, not knowing _ipso facto_ that it was there, should first take the advice of Nick Bottom in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and make sure of their object by consulting an almanac.