The Manger was a celebrated weather portent, as early as the days of Aratos and Homer. Aratos thus speaks of it in this connection:
Far north, in Cancer's territory, it floats,
Its confines are two faintly glimmering stars,
One on the north, the other on the south,
These are two asses that the Manger parts,
Which suddenly, when all the sky is clear,
Sometimes quite vanishes, and the two stars
Seem closer to have moved their sundered orbs.
No feeble tempest then will soak the leas.
A murky Manger with both stars
Unaltered, is a sign of rain.
If while the Northern Ass is dimmed
By vaporous shroud, he of the south gleams radiant,
Expect a south wind. Vapour and radiance
Exchanging stars, harbinger Boreas.
Pliny wrote: "If Præsepe is not visible in a clear sky it is a presage of a violent storm."
In China the Manger was known, says Allen, by the unsavoury appellation, "Exhalation of Piled-up Corpses," and within one degree of it Mercury was observed from that country on June 9, 118 a.d. One of the Chinese names for Cancer was "the Red Bird," and it was supposed to mark one of the residences of the Red or Southern Emperor.
In astrology, like all clusters, the Beehive threatened mischief and blindness.
In this constellation was located the 6th lunar station of the Hindus, known as "Pushya," meaning "Flower." It was sometimes figured as a crescent, and again as the head of an arrow. If lines are drawn through the stars γ, δ, and θ on the diagram it will be seen that these figures are well named. The Hindu figure of a "flower" in this region of the sky reveals a strange coincidence, to say the least. In Peruvian astronomy Cancer was known as "Cantut Pata," or "Terrace of the Cantut," the cantut
