Corona Australis—­Southern Crown.—­One of the old constellations in the southern hemisphere, between Sagittarius and Scorpio.  The Corona were fabled to be Menippe and Metioche, two daughters of Orion, who sacrificed themselves at the suggestion of an oracle, to protect Boeotia, their native country, from the ravages of a pestilence:  it being the belief of idolatrous nations that an angry god could be propitiated by human sacrifices, and that the death of the innocent might atone for the sins of the guilty.  The deities of Hades were astonished, it is said, at the patriotism and devotion of these Grecian maidens, who had so generously and uselessly sacrificed their lives.  After their death two stars were seen to issue from the altars that still smoked with their blood, and these stars were placed in the heavens in the form of a crown or coronet.

Cepheus and Cassiopia.—­One of the old asterism in the northern hemisphere, near the pole.  According to Grecian fables, Cassiopia and her husband Cepheus, king of Etheopia, were placed among the constellations to witness the punishment inflicted on their daughter, Andromeda.

TRIANGULARIUM.—­A name for both one of the old and new constellations in the northern hemisphere, between Andromeda and Aries.

SERPENTARIUS, called Ophiucus, is a constellation in the northern hemisphere, between Scorpio and Hercules.

Hercules, one of the old northern constellations.  In Grecian mythology it was taught and believed that Hercules, the Theban, was born of a human mother and an immortal father, like other so-called saviours of mankind.  His mother, the fair Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, having found favor in the eyes of the god Jupiter, soon fell an unwilling victim to his celestial wiles.  The life of the infant Hercules, born of this unnatural union, was threatened by the jealous Juno, the same as the life of the infant Jesus was threatened by the tyrant Herod.  Like Jesus, Hercules devoted his life to the benefit of the human race, and like Jesus he was also worshipped after his death as a God in heaven.  He is shown in the astrological chart, enveloped in the skin of the lion he has slain, with his club upraised, and his foot placed threateningly above the head of the Dragon, as if about to fulfill the scriptural prophecy, that “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”