Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1891 — What Are the Dog Days? [ARTICLE]

What Are the Dog Days?

The dog days last from the beginning of July to August 11. The popular theory is that they are so called be-, cause dogs then go mad; but the notion is etymologically false, besides being untrue in fact. Bogs, strange to sav, 1 are rather less liable to rabies then than at other times. “Bog days” is really a tran 3 la'ion of the Latin" “dies caniculares” —the twenty days before and the twenty days after the heliacal rising (that is, appearance in the mom-1 ing just before the sun) of the 6tar Sirius, whom the Romttm called “Canicula,” or “little dog.” The ancients attributed a most marvelous influence to this star—our “dog star”—and sac-j rificed a brown dog to it to appease its rage. If this were not done they thought that the sea would boil, the wine turn sour and the dogs begin to grow mad, the bile increase and animals grow languid. It is unnecessary to say that, in the course of some ages, Sirius will rise at midwinter ins stead of at midsummer. Perhaps soma wiseacres, like (ho e who arc ready to believe in dog days and new changing the weather and similar impossibilities, will then give him credit for the host and enow. — Brooklyn Eagle. ;