HERCULES

hercules, in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by eudoxus (4th century b.c.) and aratus (3rd century b.c.) and catalogued by ptolemy (29 stars) and tycho brahe (28 stars). represented by a man kneeling, this constellation was first known as "the man on his knees," and was afterwards called cetheus, theseus and hercules by the ancient greeks. interesting objects in this constellation are: [alpha] _herculis_, a fine coloured double star, composed of an orange star of magnitude 2(1/2), and a blue star of magnitude 6; [zeta] _herculis_, a binary star, discovered by sir william herschel in 1782; one component is a yellow star of the third magnitude, the other a bluish, which appears to vary from red to blue, of magnitude 6; g and u _herculis_, irregularly variable stars; and the cluster _m. 13 herculis_, the finest globular cluster in the northern hemisphere, containing at least 5000 stars and of the 1000 determined only 2 are variable. herd (a word common to teutonic languages; the o. eng. form was _heord_; cf. ger. _herde_, swed. and dan. _hjord_; the sans. _ca'rdhas_, which shows the pre-teutonic form, means a troop), a number of animals of one kind driven or fed together, usually applied to cattle as "flock" is to sheep, but used also of whales, porpoises, &c., and of birds, as swans, cranes and curlews. a "herd-book" is a book containing the pedigree and other information of any breed of cattle or pigs, like the "flock-book" for sheep or "stud-book" for horses. formerly the word "herdwick" was applied to the pasture ground under the care of a shepherd, and it is now used of a special hardy breed of sheep in cumberland and westmorland. the word "herd" is also applied in a disparaging sense to a company of people, a mob or rabble, as "the vulgar herd." as the name for a keeper of a herd or flock of domestic animals, the herdsman, it is usually qualified to denote the kind of animal under his protection, as swine-herd, shepherd, &c., but in ireland, scotland and the north of england, "herd" alone is commonly used.