perpetuating this name--the rivulet Dragone, for instance, which falls
into the Ionian not far from Cape Colonne.

A non-angry aspect of them has also been suggested as the origin: the
tortuous wanderings of rivers in the plains, like the Meander, that
recall the convolutions of the serpent. For serpent and dragon are apt
to be synonymous with the ancients.

Both these explanations, I think, are late developments in the evolution
of the dragon-image. They leave one still puzzling as to what may be the
aboriginal conception underlying this legendary beast of earth and
clouds and waters. We must go further back.

What is a dragon? An animal, one might say, which looks or regards
(Greek _drakon);_ so called, presumably, from its terrible eyes. Homer
has passages which bear out this interpretation:

_[Greek: Smerdaleon de dedorken],_ etc.

Now the Greeks were certainly sensitive to the expression of animal
eyes--witness "cow-eyed" Hera, or the opprobrious epithet "dog-eyed";
altogether, the more we study what is left of their zoological
researches, the more we realize what close observers they were in
natural history. Aristotle, for instance, points out sexual differences
in the feet of the crawfish which were overlooked up to a short time
ago. And Hesiod also insists upon the dragon's eyes. Yet it is
significant that _ophis,_ the snake, is derived, like _drakon,_ from a
root meaning nothing more than to perceive or regard. There is no
connotation of ferocity in either of the words. Gesner long ago suspected
that the dragon was so called simply from its keen or rapid perception.