The method of delineation referred to is simply that of connecting the stars of a group by lines, _ad libitum_, that is, not merely introducing so many lines as will connect all the stars into a single set, but where necessary to complete the delineation of the imagined figure, adding other lines connecting pairs of stars belonging to the group, yet not so many that _every_ pair of stars is connected by a line. The lines, again, need not be straight. On the contrary, where a group of stars forms a stream, the natural way of joining them is by lines so curved as to follow the serpentine course thus suggested. And in other cases a slight curvature of the lines joining pairs of stars will seem permissible, because corresponding to a configuration suggested by the stars themselves.
It is easily seen that in some of the simplest cases, the figure associated with a constellation is at once suggested by this method of delineation. For instance, take the case of the Northern Crown.
[Illustration: Fig. 32.--The Northern Crown.]
In this constellation we have a group which, while consisting of only a few stars, yet suggests very naturally the idea of a coronet of gems, as shown in fig. 32. The same is true also, though perhaps in less degree, of the Dolphin, as shown in fig. 33. It is noteworthy, by the way, that this constellation can hardly have been invented by landsmen. For though in our own time when the pictures of sea-creatures are accurately drawn, so that persons who have never been to sea may have a correct idea of the figure of such creatures, in old times it was exceedingly unlikely that any but sailors would have such familiar knowledge of the dolphin as to be reminded of that creature by a group of stars.
A much more complex constellation than either of those just mentioned--the Scorpion,--is even better represented by lineation, as shown in fig. 34. It is not, however, with cases so remarkable as these that the difficulty suggested at the outset is really connected. The instances of really remarkable resemblance are so few that they must be regarded as altogether exceptional. The best proof that the Scorpion is unmistakably pictured by the stars is to be found in the fact that the modern map-makers have not in this case departed much from the older delineations. No one, in fact, who knows what a Scorpion is like, could have any doubt as to the configuration of the body, at least, of the celestial Scorpion. So that though such a case illustrates well the way in which the method of delineation I have suggested may be made to picture the object seen by the ancient observers in the heavens, it does not afford any answer to the difficulty indicated by those who assert that the Great Bear, the Lion, the Ship, and other of the old constellation figures, have no real existence among the stars.