Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/428

310 constellation Capricornus, where, as we have seen, Pan or Bacchus escaped from Typhon by jumping into the river Nile, and assuming the form of a Goat-Fish.

It is comforting to know that Typhon was finally disposed of by the father of the gods, and, according to the myth, he lies crushed to death beneath Mount Ætna.

The Babylonians, Syrians, Persians, Turks, and Greeks all regarded this star group as representing two Fishes, and we find them appropriately placed in the part of the sky known to the ancients as "the Sea," near the Whale, the Dolphin, and the Southern Fish.

Sayce is of the opinion that the dual form of this constellation is due to the double month inserted eyery six years into the Babylonian calendar.

The two Fishes are known as "the Northern Fish," which lies just south of Andromeda, and "the Western Fish," situated below Pegasus. The former was known to the Chaldeans as "the Tunny," and it is said that there was an important tunny fishery at Cyzicus, which might have influenced the choice of these symbols.

According to the Egyptians this sign denoted the approach of spring and the season for fishing. It is also claimed that the name of the Fishes was derived from the fact that, at the time when the sun entered Pisces, fishes were considered as fattest and most in season for use.

Brown claims that Pisces is a reduplication of the nocturnal sun, the fish sun concealed in the waters. The archaic myth is that of the resumption of the cultivation of the earth after the catastrophe of the Flood.

The Arabs knew the Western Fish as "Al-Hut," the Fish, and they considered the stars in the Northern Fish as part of the constellation Andromeda.

Allen tells us that the Chaldeans imagined the Northern Fish with the head of a swallow. The association of a bird with this constellation is very curious. Among the