CANICULA

, a name given by many of the earlier astronomers to the constellation which we call the Lesser Dog, and Canis Minor, but some Procyon and Antecanis. See Canis minor.

It is also used for one of the stars of the constellation Canis Major; called also simply the Dog-star; and by the Greeks *seirios, Sirius. It is situated in the mouth of the constellation, and is the largest and brightest of all the stars in the heavens. From the heliacal rising of this star, that is, its emersion from the sun's rays, which now happens with us about the 11th of August, the ancients reckoned their dies caniculares, or dog-days.

The Egyptians and Ethiopians began their year at the heliacal rising of Canicula; reckoning to its rise again the next year, which is called the Annus Canarius.

CANICULAR Days, or Eog-days, denote a certain number of days, before and after the heliacal rising of canicula, or the dog-star, in the morning. The ancients imagined that this star, so rising, occasioned the sultry weather usually felt in the latter part of the summer, or dog-days; with all the distempers of that sickly season: Homer's Il. lib. 5, v. 10, and Virgil's Æn. lib. 10, v. 270. Some authors say, from Hippocrates and Pliny, that the day this star first rises in the morning, the sea boils, wine turns sour, dogs begin to grow mad, the bile increases and irritates, and all animals grow languid; also that the diseases it usually occasions in men, are burning fevers, dysenteries, and phrensies. The Romans too sacrisiced a brown dog every year to Canicula at his first rising, to appease its rage. All this however arose from a groundless idea that the dog-star, so rising, was the occasion of the extreme heat and the diseases of that season; for the star not only varies in its rising, in any one year, as the latitude varies, but it is always later and later every year in all latitudes; so that in time the star may, by the same rule, come to be charged with bringing frost and snow, when he comes to rise in winter.

The dog-days were commonly counted for about 40 days, viz, 20 days before and 20 days after the heliacal rising; and almanac-makers have usually set down the dog-days in their almanacs to the changing time of the star's rising, by which means they had at length fallen considerably after the hottest time of the year, till of late we have observed an alteration of them in the almanacs, and very properly, from July 3 to August 11. For, by the dog-days, the ancients meant to express the hottest time of the year, which is commonly during the month of July, about which month the dog-star rose heliacally in the time of the most ancient astronomers that we know of: but the precession of the equinoxes has carried this heliacal rising into a much later and cooler part of the year; and because Hesiod tells us that the hot time of the year ends on the 50th day after the summer solstice, which brings us to about August 10 or 11, therefore the above alteration seems to be very proper.

Canicular Year, denotes the Egyptian natural year, which was computed from one heliacal rising of canicula, to the next. This year was also called annus canarius, and annus cynicus; and by the Egyptians themselves the Sethic year, from Seth, by which name they called Sirius. Some call it also the heliacal year. This year consisted ordinarily of 365 days, and every 4th year of 366; by which means it was accommodated to the civil year, like the Julian account. And the reason why they chose this star, in preference to others, to compute their time by, was not only the superior brightness of that star, but because that in Egypt its heliacal rising was a time of very singular note, as coinciding with the greatest augmentation of the Nile, the reputed father of Egypt. Ephestion adds, that from the aspect of canicula, its colour &c, the Egyptians drew prognostics concerning the rise of the Nile; and, according to Florus, predicted the future state of the year. So that it is no wonder the first rising of this star was observed with great attention. Bainbrigge, Canicul. cap. 4. p. 26.

CANIS Major, the Great Dog, a constellation of the southern hemisphere, below the feet of Orion, and one of the old 48 constellarions. The Greeks, as usual, have many fables of their own about the exaltation of the dog into the skies; but the origin of this constellation, as well as its other name Sirius, lies more probably among the Egyptians, who carefully watched the rising of this star, and by it judged of the swelling of the Nile, calling the star the sentinel and watch of the year; and hence, according to their manner of hieroglyphic writing, represented it under the figure of a dog. They also called the Nile Siris; and hence their Osiris.

The stars in this constellation, Ptolemy makes 29; Tycho however observed only 13, and Hevelius 21; but in Flamsteed's catalogue they are 31.

Canis Minor, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, just below Gemini, and is one of the 48 old constellations. The Greeks fabled that this is one of Orion's hounds; but the Egyptians were most probably the inventors of this constellation, and they may have given it this figure to express a little dog, or watchful creature, going before as leading in the larger, or rising before it: and hence the Latins have called it Antecanis, the star before the dog. |

The stars in this constellation are, in Ptolomy's catalogue 2, the principal of which is the star Procyon; in Tycho's 5, in Hevelius's 13; and in Flamsteed's 14.