These instances of a similar festival at approximately the same period of the year, and regulated (until fixed to a particular day in a solar calendar) by the midnight culmination of the Pleiades, show conclusively how great an influence that constellation has had on the manners and customs of the world, and throw some light on the history of man. Even where we find no festival connected with the particular position of the Pleiades which is the basis of the above, they still are used for the regulation of the seasons--as amongst the Dyaks of Borneo. This race of men are guided in their farming operations by this constellation. "When it is low in the east at early morning, before sunrise, the elders know it is time to cut down the jungle; when it approaches mid-heaven, then it is time to burn what they have cut down; when it is declining towards the west, then they plant; and when in the early evening it is seen thus declining, then they may reap in safety and in peace;" the latter period is also that of their feast of _Nycapian_, or first-fruits. We find the same regulations amongst the ancient Greeks in the days of Hesiod, who tells us that the corn is to be cut when the Pleiades rise, and ploughing is to be done when they set. Also that they are invisible for forty days, and reappear again at harvest. When the Pleiades rise, the care of the vine must cease; and when, fleeing from Orion, they are lost in the waves, sailing commences to be dangerous. The name, indeed, by which we now know these stars is supposed to be derived from the word [Greek: plein], to sail--because sailing was safe after they had risen; though others derive it from [Greek: peleiai], a flight of doves.