forgot to tell you that these dippers are not the real
thing. They are merely parts of bigger constellations and their real
names are Great Bear and Little Bear. The oldest names are the right
ones. Thousands of years ago, when the Greeks named these groups of
stars, they thought they looked like two bears. I can't see the
resemblance.

But for that matter all the figures in the sky are disappointing. The
people who named the constellations called them lions, and fishes, and
horses, and hunters, and they thought they could see a dolphin, a
snake, a dragon, a crow, a crab, a bull, a ram, a swan, and other
things. But nowadays we cannot see those creatures. We can see the stars
plainly enough, and they do make groups, but they do not look like
animals. I was greatly disappointed when I was told this; but I soon got
over it, because new wonders are always coming on. I think the only
honest thing to do is to tell you right at the start that you cannot see
these creatures very well. You will spoil your pleasure unless you take
these resemblances good-naturedly and with a light heart. And you will
also spoil your pleasure if you scold the ancients for naming the
constellations badly. Nobody in the world would change those old names
now. There is too much pleasure in them. Besides, I doubt if we could do
much better. I believe those old folks were better observers than we.
And I believe they had a lighter fancy.

Let us, too, be fanciful for once. I have asked my friend, Mrs. Thomas,
to draw her notion of some of these famous creatures of the sky. You can
draw your idea of them too, and it is pleasant to compare drawings with
friends. There is only one way to see anything like a Great Bear. You
have to imagine the Dipper upside down and make the handle of the Dipper
serve for the Bear's tail. What a funny bear to drag a long tail on the
ground! Miss Martin says he looks more like a chubby hobby-horse. You
will have to make the bowl of the Dipper into hind legs and use all the
other stars, somehow, to make a big, clumsy, four-legged animal. And
what a monster he is! He measures twenty-five degrees from the tip of
his nose to the root of his tail. Yes, all those miscellaneous faint
stars you see near the Big Dipper belong to the Great Bear.

[Illustration: Orion fighting the Bull. Above are Orion's two dogs]

[Illustration: The Little Bear, the Queen in her chair, the Twins and
the Archer]

How the Great Bear looked to the