Dracina, Dracine

(Chem.) Same as DRACO NINE, q. v. Draco, ( drai'ko ,) an A then i an legislator, the extraordinary and indiscriminate severity of whose laws has rendered his name odious to humanity. During the period of his archonship, about B. c. 623, he enacted a criminal code, in which slight offences were punished as severely as murder or sacrilege. Hence it was said to be "written in blood." The laws of D. , the first written laws of Athens, were for the most part superseded by the legislation of Solon. D. is said to have been accidentally killed in a theatre at Ægin a. Dra'co. ( Astron .) The Dragon, a northern constellation containing 80 stars, of which 2 are of the 2d, and 3 of the 3d magnitude. The star y Drac on is or Etanin is celebrated as the one used in determining the co-efficient of aberration of the fixed stars. It is a bright star, nearly in the solstitial colure, and consequently the minor axis of the small ellipse which its apparent place describes in the heavens, lies in the meridian at its transit. Moreover, at the two equinoxes, when its apparent place is at the extremities respectively of this minor axis, it can be observed on the meridian at one equinox about sunrise, and at the other about sunset, so that both observations may be made without the interference of a too bright daylight. These two observations, therefore, are easily taken, and the difference in the north polar distance, which they give. is the minor axis of the ellipse described by the apparent place of the star. (Zool.) The flying-lizard. See DRAGON.