About the first of February the constellation Auriga is on the meridian not far from overhead, Capella lying toward the west. Directly under Auriga, two rather conspicuous stars mark the tips of the horns of Taurus, imagined as a gigantic bull, and south of these, with its centre on the equator, scintillates the magnificent constellation Orion, the most splendid in all the sky, with two great first-magnitude stars, one, in the shoulder of the imaginary giant, of an orange hue, called Betelguese, and the other in the foot, of a blue-white radiance, called Rigel. Between these is stretched the straight line of the “belt,” consisting of three beautiful second-magnitude stars, about a degree and a half apart. Their names, beginning with the western one, are Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitah. Directly under the belt, in the midst of a short row of faint stars called the “sword,” is the great Orion nebula. It will be observed that the three stars of the belt point, though not exactly, toward the brightest of all stars, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, the Great Dog, which is seen advancing from the east. Under Orion is a little constellation named Lepus, the Hare.