jam nominatur Asiua. secur ; where thelast word, if an abbreviation for securis,"ax," seems not inappropriate when taking the western half of Hydrafor a somewhat crooked handle, and Corvus for the ax-head. The Asina, or She Ass,which La Lande mentioned, is probably a continuation of some early typeerror in the barbarous Asiua.Coluber, the Snake, and Echidna, the Viper,also obtain for Hydra, with the adjectives Furiosus, Magnanimus, and Sublimatus, here usedas proper nouns, as they were for Orion. The Arabians similarly called it Al Hayyah, another oftheir words for a snake, El Havic in Riccioli'sNewAlmagest.Itsrepresentation has generally been as we have it, but the Hyginus of 1488added a tree in whose branches the Hydra's head is resting; probably arecollection of the dragon that guarded the apple-trees of the Hesperides,although this duty really belonged to our Draco; and attimes it has been shown as three-headed. Map-makers have always figured it inits present form, the Cup resting midway on its back, with the Raven peckingp248at one of itsfolds; Hydra preventing the latter's access to the Cup in punishment for itstattling about Coronis; or for its delay in Apollo's service. The minorconstellation Turdus, or Noctua, onlyrecently has been added to it.Those who sawbiblical symbols among the stars called Hydra the Flood; Corvus, Noah's Raven; and Crater,the Cup "out ofwhich the patriarch sinned"; but Julius Schiller said that the wholerepresented the River Jordan.The 7th sieu, Lieu, a WillowBranch, or Liu, a Circular Garland, wasthe creature's head, 15 south of Praesaepe, beingthe determinant, and formed the beak of the Red Bird; it governed the planetsand was worshiped at festivals of the summer solstice as an emblem ofimmortality.Here, too,was the 7th nakshatra, Aclesha, or Acresha, theEmbracer, figured as a Wheel, with Sarpas,the Serpents, as presiding divinities; marking the junctionwith the nakshatra Magha.The 8th sieu, Sing, a Star,anciently Tah, was formed by , , and , with otherssmaller lying near them, beingthe determinant. This asterism constituted the neck of the Red Bird, and,Edkins asserts, was also known as the Seven Stars.The 9th sieu consisted of , 1, 2, , , , and anotherunascertained, and was called Chang or Tchang, a DrawnBow, Brown says "ancientlyTjung, theArcher," 1 being the determinant;the god Chang using this bow to slay the Sky Dog, our Crater. The stars betweenCorvus and Crater were Kien Mun, and thosebetween Hydrae and Spica ofthe Virgin were Tien Mun, Heaven's Gate. These liebeyond the outlines of the Virgin's robe on the Heis map, but on Burritt's areincluded in the tip of her left wing.Hydra issupposed to be the snake shown on a uranographic stone from the Euphrates,of 1200 B.C., "identified with the source of the fountainsof the great deep," and one of the several sky symbols of the great dragonTiamat. Certain stars near, or perhaps in the tip of Hydra's tail and in Libra,seem to have been the Akkadian Ente-na-masluv, or Ente-na-masmur, theAssyrian Etsen-tsiri, the Tail-tip.Theon saidthat the Egyptians considered it the sky representative of the Nile, and gave ittheir name for that river.AfterAl Sufi's day, in our 10th century, the figure was much lengthened,and now stretches for nearly 95