These lines are intended to imply that the days named will usually bring, in every November, a few meteors at all events belonging to the grand shower. These are stragglers, as it were, from the mighty host which visits us three times in the century. Astronomers have a special name for this group of November meteors. They are called the “Leonids.” To explain why this name has been given, and why it is appropriate, we must dwell on an important part of the phenomena of the shower. [Illustration: Fig. 23.—Position of Leo, Source of the Leonids] Among the constellations there is a fine sickle-shaped group, forming a part of Leo, one of the signs of the Zodiac. That part of the sky defined by Leo is curiously related to the meteors of the 12th to the 14th of November. Every shooting star truly belonging to that great shower pursued a track across the heavens, the direction of which, if carried back far enough, was always found to pierce through the sickle of Leo. Indeed, the paths of all the meteors formed a set of rays spreading away from that one point in the constellation. An invariable characteristic of this particular shower is its connection with the constellation of Leo, hence the appropriateness of the name of Leonids. It must be borne in mind that we can never see the meteors until the fatal moment when they dive into our atmosphere. We could, indeed, at any time point our telescope to the spot in the heavens where we know the great shoal must certainly be located. But the mightiest telescope in the world does not disclose the shoal to us. In fact, we would never have seen these Leonids at all, we would never have become conscious that such a shoal of meteors existed, had it not been for a certain circumstance, which, for want of a better expression, I must speak of as accidental. Our globe pursues a certain definite track around the sun. Year after year, with undeviating regularity, the earth performs the stages of its journey. If it reaches certain points on the 1st of January and the 12th of October in one year, then it reaches the same points on the 1st of January and the 12th of October respectively on next year, or any other year. The Leonids and the earth have each a certain track. It might of course have happened that one of these tracks lay quite outside or quite inside the other. In the case of the Leonids, it has chanced that their orbit does intersect the orbit of the earth, and to this circumstance we are indebted for the glorious displays every thirty-three years.