58 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



is elongated, but the eight necks with small heads on them 

 bear about the same proportion to the body as the arms to 

 the body of an octopus. 



The Reverend James Spence, in his * Polymetis,' pub- 

 lished in 1755, gives a figure, almost the counterpart of this, 

 copied from an antique gem, a carnelian, in the collection of 

 the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence. Only seven 

 necks of the hydra are, however, there visible, and there 

 are two coils in the elongated body. On the upper part 

 are two spots which have been supposed to represent 

 breasts. This was probably intended by the artificer ; but 

 that the idea originated from a duplication of the syphon 

 tube is evident from the figures (Figs. 21, 22) of the octopus 

 on the smaller gold ornaments found by Dr. Schliemann at 

 Mycenae. In the same work is also an engraving from a 

 picture in the Vatican Virgil, entitled 'The River, or 

 Hateful Passage into the Kingdom of Ades,' wherein an 

 octopus — hydra, of which only six heads and necks are 

 shown, is one of the monsters called by the author " Terrors 

 of the Imae^ination." 



