(*i.e.* basket-bearer), in *Grecian Antiquity,* a maiden whose office it was at the festivals of Minerva, Ceres, and Bacchus, to carry the sacred utensils for sacrifice in a shallow wicker basket on her head. At Athens this office was accounted so honourable, that two virgins of the highest rank were appointed for the purpose.

On an antefixa in the British museum, two canephorae are represented standing before a candelabrum.

In architecture, canephorae are figures of young persons of either sex in imitation of the above. They are sometimes confounded with caryatides.

Canephorae also denoted those virgins who, when mar- Canes Venatici, in Astronomy, the Greyhounds (Asterion and Clara), a constellation first established by Hevelius, between the tail of the Great Bear and Bootes's arms, above the Coma Berenices. It contains 25 stars.