in Grecian Mythology, the nymphs whose duty it was to watch over the golden apples presented by Tellus to Juno on the occasion of her marriage with Jupiter. Their number and names, like those of the Atlantides, with whom they are often identified, are very variously given; but the received accounts represent them as three in number, and bearing the names of Arethusa, Ægle, and Hesperia or Hesperethusa. Their home, according to the earliest legends, was an island in the western ocean, so near the setting sun that foot of man could never reach them. In their watch over the golden fruit, they were assisted by the sleepless dragon, Ladon. One of the twelve labours of Hercules was to slay this dragon and carry off the fruit. In the attempts to localize the home of the Hesperides, the ancient poets assigned it to different spots of Africa, such as the Cyrenaica, the neighbourhood of Mount Atlas, an oasis in the great desert, or to the Happy Islands in the Atlantic.