DOG DAYS

The name given to certain days of the year, during which the heat is usually the greatest. They are reckoned about 40, and are set down in the almanacs as beginning on the 3rd day of July, and ending on the 11th of August. In the time of the ancient astronomers, the remarkable star Sirius, called also Canicula, or the Bog Star, rose heliacally, that is, just before the sun, about the beginning of July; and the sultry heat which usually prevails at that season, with all its disagreeable effiects, among which the tendency of dogs to become mad is not one of the least disagreeable, were ascribed to the malignant rage of the star. Owing to the prece ion of the equinoxes, the heliacal rising of Sirius now takes place later in the year, and in a cooler season; so that the dog days have not now that relation to the particular position of the Bog Star from which thev obtained their name. [s. 202]