Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/523

delivered them to the Erinyes. In these two daughters, one of whom is the nightingale (Od. xx. 518), and the other probably the swallow (v. Sonne in Kuhun’s Zedtschrift, x., 121), we recognize the spring growing up in beauty till it issuddenly snatched away from the earth by the storms of autumn. Hosiol (Z'heog., 267) says that the Harpies, Aeilo and Ocypete, winged goddesses with beautiful locks, are the daughters of Thaumas and Electra. Other accounts mike them children of Poseidon or of Phineus, always the sun in some form; while a third, Celzeno, is often added to their number. As we come down later in literature, a more hateful and repulsive character attaches to the Hirpies. This is especially seen in the myth of the blind king Phineus, the sun-god in the dark winter months, tormented by the Harpies, where the transforming fancy of the poets can be traced more and more. Hesiod related (Strabo, vii. £63) that the Harpies carried off Phineus to th2 land of the Glactophagi, a mythic people, who repre- sent like the Hyperboreans or the Pheacians the race of the lead, the Pitris or Manes. The myth was incorporated as an episode in the tale of the Argonauts, and is then imitated by Virgil with still more nauseous details (4/2. iii. 212). On the so-called Harpy monument from Lycia, now in the British Museum, they appear as winged figures, the body like that of a bird with the head and bust of a woman. They are carrying off small figures, probably departed souls.

HARPOCRATES, originally an Egyptian deity, was adoptel by the Grecks, and became in later times an object of worship both to Greeks and Romans, In Egypt Har-pa-khruti, Horus the child, was one of the forms of Horus, the sun-god, the child of Osiris (see Egypt, vol.–vii. p. 717). Hence Herodotus (ii. 144) considers him the same as the Greek Apollo. He was said by the Greeks to have been born with his finger on his lips, and is thus represented in statues. As the god of silence he became a favourite deity among the later mystic schools of philosophy. Festivals with certain mysterious rites were celebrated in his honour.

HARPY, a large diurnal bird of prey, so named after the mythological monster of the classical poets,—the Phrasactus harpyia of modern ornithologists,—an inhabit- ant of the warmer parts of America from Southern Mexico to Brazil. Though known for more than two centuries, its habits have come very little under the notice of naturalists, and what is said of them by the older writers must be received with some suspicion.

Harpy.

A cursory inspection of the bird, which is not unfrequently brought alive to Europe, its size, and its enormous bill and talons, at once suggest the vast powers of destruction imputed to it, and are enough tv account for the stories told of its ravages on mammals, —sloths, fawns, peccaries, and spider-monkeys. It has even been asserted to attack the human race. How much of this is fabulous there seems no means at present of deter- mining, but some of the statements are made by veracious travellers—D’Orbigny and Tschudi. It 1s not uncommon in the forests of the isthmus of Panama, and Mr Salvin says (Proc. Zool. Society, 1864, p. 368) that its flight is slow and heavy. Indeed its Owl-like visage, its short wings and soft plumage, do not indicate a bird of very active habits, but the weapons of offence with which, as above stated, it is armed, show that it must be able to cope with vigorous prey. Its appearance issufliciently striking—the head and lower parts, except a pectoral band, white, the former adorned with an erectile crest, the upper parts dark grey banded with black, the wings dusky, and the tail barred; but the huge bill and powerful scutellated legs most of all impress the beholder. The precise aflinities of the Harpy cannot be said to lave been determined. By some authors it is referred to the Eagles, by others to the Buzzards, and by others again to the Hawks; but possibly the first of these alliances is the most likely to be true.

(a. n.)

HARRIER. See Dog.

HARRIER, or Hen-Harrrer, name given to certain birds of prey which were formerly very abundant in parts of the British Islands, from their habit of harrying poultry. The first of these names has now become used in a generic sense for all the species ranked under the genus Circus of Lacépéde, and the second confined to the particular species which is the Fulco cyancus of Linnxus and the Circus cyaneus of modern ornithologists.

Hen-Harrier (Male and Female).

On the wing Harriers have much resemblance to Buzzards, using the same flapping stroke of the pinions, and wheeling or sailing aloft as they fly. One European species indeed, C. eruginosus, though called in books the Marsh-Harrier, is far more commonly known in England and Ireland as the Moor-Buzzard. But Harriers are not, like Buzzards, arboreal in their habits, and always affect open country, generally, though not invariably, preferring marshy or fenny districts, for snakes and frogs form a great pari of their ordinary food. Onthe ground their carriage is utterly unlike that of a Buzzard, and their long wings and legs