Mĕleāgrĭdes

, the sisters of Meleager, daughters of Œneus and Althæa. They were so disconsolate at the death of their brother Meleager, that they refused all aliments, and were, at the point of death, changed into birds called Me lea grides, whose feathers and eggs, as it is supposed, are of a different colour. The youngest of the sisters, Gorge and Dejanira, who had been married, escaped this metamorphosis. Apollo dor us , bk. 1 , ch. 8 .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 8 , li. 540 .— Pliny , bk. 10 , ch. 26 .