in the ancient navigation, a wooden ornament, shaped like a plume of feathers, fastened on the goos's or swan's neck used by the ancient Greeks in the heads of their ships. The aphlastum had much the same office and effect in a ship that the crest had on the helmet. It seems also to have had this further use, viz. by the waving of a party-coloured ribbon fastened to it, to indicate from what quarter the wind blew.