called by the Chinese "the Willow Branch," or "Circular Garland," which rules over planets, and forms the beak of the "Red Bird." It was worshipped at festivals of the summer solstice as an emblem of immortality.
Here, too, Allen tells us was the seventh Hindu lunar station, known as the "Embracer," which was figured as a wheel. Edkins asserts that this star group was also known as "the Seven Stars." In the Euphratean star list it bears the title of "the Mouth of the Snake Drinks."
According to Dr. Seiss, the Hydra stands for that Old Serpent called the Devil, while to Schiller it represented the River Jordan.
The only star of importance in this constellation is the second magnitude star α Hydræ, a dull red star known to the Arabs as "Alphard," meaning the "solitary one," an appropriate title as there are no other bright stars in this region of the heavens. Tycho Brahe was the first to call it "Cor Hydræ," the heart of Hydra, a familiar name for the star. The Arabs also knew it as " the Backbone of the Serpent," and it was the most prominent star in the great Chinese asterism called "the Red Bird." Alphard culminates at 9 p.m. on March 26th,
Eudosia thus alludes to Hydra and the star Alphard:
The sparkling Hydra, proudly eminent
To drink the Galaxy's refulgent sea;
Nearly a fourth of the encircling curve
Which girds the ecliptic, his vast folds involve;
Yet ten the number of his stars diffused
O'er the long track of his enormous spires;
Chief beams his breast, sure of the second rank,
But emulous to gain the first.
Garrett P. Serviss, who has done so much to popularise astronomy, writes as follows of the stars like Alphard lone and unattended: "There is an attraction about these solitary bright stars that is almost mystical, their very loneliness lending interest to the view, as when one watches
