Kleiner Hund
The medieval Arabic astronomers maintained the depiction of Canis Minor ("al-Kalb al-Asghar" in Arabic) as a dog; in his Book of the Fixed Stars, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi included a diagram of the constellation with a canine figure superimposed. There was one slight difference between the Ptolemaic vision of Canis Minor and the Arabic; al-Sufi claims Mirzam, now assigned to Orion, as part of both Canis Minor—the collar of the dog—and its modern home. The Arabic names for both Procyon and Gomeisa alluded to their proximity and resemblance to Sirius, though they were not direct translations of the Greek; Procyon was called "ash-Shi'ra ash-Shamiya", the "Syrian Sirius" and Gomeisa was called "ash-Shira al-Ghamisa", the Sirius with bleary eyes. Among the Merazig of Tunisia, shepherds note six constellations that mark the passage of the dry, hot season. One of them, called "Merzem", includes the stars of Canis Minor and Canis Major and is the herald of two weeks of hot weather.