o
the size of the moon. Now we know that is all bosh. Those old
superstitions have done more harm than good. One of the most harmful was
the belief in witches. Let us resolve never to be afraid of these old
tales, but laugh at them.

Why should anybody be afraid of anything so lovely as Sirius? I used to
think Sirius twinkled more than any other star. But that was bad
reasoning on my part. I might have noticed that every star twinkles more
near the horizon than toward the zenith. I might have noticed that stars
twinkle more on clear, frosty nights than when there is a little uniform
haze. And putting those two facts together I might have reasoned that
the stars never really twinkle at all; they only seem to. I might have
concluded that the twinkling is all due to the atmosphere--that blanket
of air which wraps the earth around. The nearer the earth, the thicker
the air, and the more it interferes with the light that comes to us from
the stars.

They say that Sirius never looks exactly alike on two successive nights.
"It has a hundred moods," says Mr. Serviss, "according to the state of
the atmosphere. By turns it flames, it sparkles, it glows, it blazes, it
flares, it flashes, it contracts to a point, and sometimes when the air
is still, it burns with a steady white light." (Quotation somewhat
altered and condensed.)

It is a pity that so fine a star as Procyon should be called the
"Smaller Dog," because it suffers unjustly by comparison with Sirius. If
it were in some other part of the sky we might appreciate it more,
because it is brighter than most of the fifteen first-magnitude stars we
can see. My brother William has grown to love it, but perhaps that is
because he always "sympathizes with the under dog." He was the youngest
brother and knows. And curiously enough he was nicknamed "the dog"--just
why, I don't know.

To find Procyon, drawn a line from Sirius northeast about twenty
degrees. And to make sure, draw one east from Betelgeuse about the same
distance. These three stars make a triangle of which the sides are
almost equal.

The name Procyon means "before the dog" referring to the fact that you
can see him fifteen or twenty minutes earlier every night than you can
see Sirius.

The only kind word about Procyon I have heard in recent years was in
connection with that miserable business of Dr. Cook and the North Pole.
A Captain Somebody-or-other was making observations for Dr. Cook, and he
wanted to kno