There are forty-eight well known constellations, but of these only about a dozen are easy to know. I think a dozen is quite enough for children to learn. And therefore, I shall tell you how to find only the showiest and most interesting.

The best way to begin is to describe the ones that you can see almost every night in the year, because you may want to begin any month in the year, and you might be discouraged if I talked about things nobody could see in that month. There are five constellations you can nearly always see, and these are all near the Pole star.

Doubtless you think you know two of them already—the Big and the Little Dipper. Ah, I 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.

How the Great Bear looked to the people who named it thousands of years ago, we probably shall never know. They left no books or drawings, so far as I know. But in every dictionary and book on astronomy you can find these bears and other animals drawn so carefully and beautifully that it seems as if they must be in the sky, and we must be too dull to see them. It is not so. Look at the pictures in this book and, you will see that the stars do not outline the animals. Many of them come at the wrong places. And so it is with all the costly books and charts and planispheres. It is all very interesting, but it isn't true. It's just fancy. And when you once understand that it isn't true, you will begin to enjoy the fancy. Many a smile you will have, and sometimes a good laugh. For instance, the English children call the Dipper "Charles's wain" or "the wagon." And the Romans called it "the plough." They thought of those seven stars as oxen drawing a plough.

Well, that's enough about the two Bears. I want to tell you about the other three constellations you can nearly always see. These are the Chair, the Charioteer, and Perseus (pronounced per'soos).

The Chair is the easiest to find, because it is like a very bad W, and it is always directly opposite the big Dipper, with the Pole star half way between the two constellations. There are five stars in the W, and to make the W into a Chair you must add a fainter star which helps to make the square bottom of the chair. But what a crazy piece of furniture! I have seen several ways of drawing it, but none of them makes a comfortable chair. I should either fall over backward, or else the back of the chair would prod me in the small of my back. The correct name of this constellation is Cassiopeia's Chair.

I think this is enough to see and enjoy in one night. To-morrow night let us look for the Charioteer.

I love the Charioteer for several reasons. One is that it makes a beautiful pentagon, or five-sided figure, with its five brightest stars. Another is that it contains the second-brightest star in the northern part of the heavens, Capella. The only star in the north that is brighter is Vega, but Vega is bluish white or creamy.

If you haven't already found the five-sided figure, I will tell you how to find Capella. Suppose you had a gun that would shoot anything as far as you wish. Shoot a white string right through the Pointers and hit the Pole star. Then place your gun at the Pole star and turn it till it is at right angles to that string you shot. Aim away from the big Dipper, shoot a bullet forty-five degrees and it will hit Capella.

If that plan doesn't work, try this. Start with the star that is at the bottom of the Dipper and nearest the handle. Draw a line half-way between the two Pointers and keep on till you come to the first bright star. This is Capella, and the distance is about fifty degrees.

Capella means "a kid," or "little goat," and that reminds me of the third reason why I enjoy so much the constellation of which Capella is the brightest star. In the old times they sometimes called this five-sided figure "the goat-carrier." And the shepherds thought they could see a man carrying a little goat in his left hand. I am sure you can see the kid they meant. It is a triangle of faint stars which you see near Capella. That's enough for to-night.

To-morrow night let us look for Perseus. I dare say you know that old tale about Perseus rescuing the princess who was chained upon a rock. (He cut off the snaky head of Medusa and showed it to the dragon that was going to devour the princess, and it turned the monster to stone. Remember?) Well, there are constellations named after all the people in that story, but although they contain many showy stars, I could never make them look like a hero, a princess, a king, and a queen. I do not even try to trace out all of Perseus. For I am satisfied to enjoy a very beautiful part of it which is called the "Arc of Perseus."

An arc, you know, is a portion of a circle. And the way to find this arc is to draw a curve from Capella to Cassiopeia. On nights that are not very clear I can see about seven stars in this Arc of Perseus. And the reason I love it so much is that it is the most beautiful thing, when seen through an opera-glass, that I know. You could never imagine that a mere opera-glass would make such a difference. The moment I put it to my eyes about a dozen more stars suddenly leap into my sight in and near the Arc of Perseus. That's enough. No more stories to-night.