There is another seeming movement among the stars, which is only in seeming. Some come into view in summer which can not be seen in winter; and some come into view in winter which can not be seen in summer. For the sun, moving on his pathway through the sky, hides those stars which shine with him in the day-time. The zodiac is an imaginary belt in the heavens, sixteen or eighteen degrees wide, containing the twelve constellations through which the sun passes. And as he passes from point to point of his pathway, he constantly conceals from us fresh groups of stars by day, and allows fresh groups to appear by night. Speaking generally, however, the stars remain the same year after year, century after century. The groups may still be seen as of old, fixed and unchanging. [Illustration: THE PLEIADES.] What are these stars? Stars and planets have both been spoken about. There is a great difference between the two. Perhaps if you were asked whether the sun is most like to a star or a planet, you would be rather at a loss; and many who have admired the brilliant evening star, Venus, often to be seen after sunset, would be surprised to learn that the evening star is in reality no star at all. A star is a sun. Our sun is nothing more nor less than a star. Each one of the so-called “fixed stars,” that you see shining at night in the sky, is a sun like our sun; only some of the stars are larger suns and some are smaller suns than ours. The main reason why our sun looks so much larger and brighter than the stars is, that he is so very much nearer to us. The stars are one and all at enormous distances from the earth. By and by we will go more closely into the matter of their distance, compared with the distance of the sun. At present it is enough to say that if many of the stars were placed just as near to us as our sun is placed, they would look just as large and bright; while there are some that would look a great deal larger and brighter. And if our sun were to travel away from us, to the distance of the very nearest of the little twinkling stars, he would dwindle down and down in size and brilliancy, till at last we should not be able to tell him apart from the rest of the stars. I have told you that the stars are called “fixed” because they keep their places, and do not change from age to age. Though the movement of the earth makes them seem all to sweep past every night in company, yet they do not travel in and out among one another, or backwards and forwards, or from side to side. At all events, if there be such changes, they are so slow and so small as to be exceedingly difficult to find out. Each group of stars keeps its own old shape, as for hundreds of years back.