In all such associations the character is indicated by the various parts employed. The Harpy of the Greeks being a combination of female head, with bird body, wings, and claws, was suggestive of swiftness and ferocity, and was the personification of sudden events.
Sirens
Equally disastrous, but more alluring, were the Sirens (or entanglers) of whom there were three, Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia. They symbolised the dangers of treacherous coasts, and were reputed to lure their victims by their beauty and wonderful singing. Failing to entrance Ulysses, they were doomed to destroy themselves.
The siren is represented in the form of a beautiful woman, but the lower limbs terminate with bird claws, typical of their ferocity. In allusion to their musical attraction, they are occasionally depicted as bearing harps or lutes.
The representation of Triton, the son and trumpeter of Neptune (in which capacity he bears the conch or shell trumpet) as a man with the lower extremities terminating into fish tails, is to embody the idea of ocean. The Dolphin has the same significance.
Pan
A similar combination of human and animal, that of Pan, depicted as a man with the horns and legs of a goat, is the personification of Deity displayed in creation and pervading all things.
Flocks and herds, being the chief property of the pastoral age, were under his divine protection; therefore Pan was a rural or rustic god.
The Nymphs
To the pastoral age also belong the Hamadryads, the nymphs of the forest trees, in which they lived, dying when the tree died. The leopard skin with which they are often partly draped, is poetically suggestive of such chequered sunlight as would penetrate woodland growth.