Fishes and reptiles occur as charges: the former are said to be if drawn in a horizontal, and hauriant, if drawn in a perpendicular position; and the dolpltin, in reality straight, is conventionally borne embozced or bent. The escallop shell is of frequent occur rence, and said to be the badge of a pilgrim. Sometimes the conventional heraldic form of an animal differs from its true form, as in the case of the antelope of heraldry, which has the head of a stag, a unicorn's tail, a tusk issuing from the tip of the nose, a row of tufts down the back of the neck, and similar tufffi on the tail, chest, and thighs.- Of "animals phantasticall" we have among others the griffin, wyvern, dragon, unicorn, basilisk, harpy. We have the human body in whole or part, a naked man, a savage, or wild man of the woods, also arms, legs, hearts, Moors' heads. Saracens' heads, and that strange heraldic freak, the three legs conjoined, carried in the escutcheon of the Isle of Man.
Of plants, we have roses, trefoils, cinquefoils, leaves, gas bs (i.e., sheaves of corn), trees, often eradicated or fructuated of some other color, and, above all, the lis, used as a badge by Louis VII. of France before heraldry had an existence. When a plant, animal, or other charge is blazoned proper, what is meant is that it is of its natural color.
The heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars, are also pressed into the service of heraldry, as are things inanimate and artificial without number, particularly such as were familiar to the warriors and pilgrims of the 12th and 13th centuries. Ilehnets, buckles, shields, hatches, horseshoes, swords, arrows, battering-rams, pilgrims' staves, mullets (or spur-rowels), and water-bougets, or bags, in which in crusading times water was carried long distances across the desert, also the clarion or war-trump, gen erally and erroneously called a rest. Even the letters of the alphabet have been used as charges.
Charges may be placed either simply on the field or on one of the ordinaries; in some instances, one of the ordinaries is placed over a charge, in which case the charge is said to be debruised by the ordinary. Three charges of one kind are placed two above and one below, unless blazoned in fess or in pale. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the simplicity of early heraldry began to be departed from by accumulating a variety of charges on one shield, and in later times we have sometimes a charge receiving another charge like an ordinary. The growing complexity of shields arose from augmentations granted to distinguish the younger branches of a family, or charges assumed from the maternal coat by the descendants of an heiress. In the end of the
last and beginning of the present century, a practice prevailed for a time of introducing into armorial bearings matter-of-fact landscapes, representations of sea-fights, and of medals and decorations worn by the bearer, setting all heraldic conventionalities at -defiance, and dealing in details not discernible on the minutest inspection. Such charges are frequent. in the arms of the heroes of the old wars; as, for example, in the augmenta tion granted to sir Alexander Campbell, hart., in addition to his paternal arms—viz., "a chief argent charged with a rock proper, subscribed GOrallar, between two medals; that on the dexter representing the silver medal presented to sir A. Campbell by the supreme government of India, for his services at the storming of Seringapatam, in 1i99; i that on the sinister representing the gold medal presented to him for his services in the battle of Talavera." The grants proceeding from the present kings-of-arms are more conformable to the usages of heraldry, and do not stand in need of such lengthened .explanations to make them intelligible.
The arms of the different members of a family have been distinguished from one another, sometimes by the use of a bordure or other difference; and sometimes, espe cially by English heralds, by the use of certain figures called marks of cadency, the label. •rescent, martlet, annulet, fleur-de-lis, to designate the eldest, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth son and his descendants—an invention orig.inating about the time of Henry VII., but which cannot consistently be carried through all the ramifications of a for a succession of generations. See CADENCY.
Blazonry is an essential part of the science of arins. To blazon a coat is so to describe i it that any one with an ordinary kuOwledge of heraldry will ha able to depict it correct ly. In the language of blazonry, all tautology must be avoided. The tincture of the field is first mentioned; the ordinary, if any, follows, unless it be a chief; then the charges between which the ordinary is placed. The charges on the ordinary follow, and lastly we have a canton or chief, and marks of cadency. The rules of blazoning arts given in the articles BLAZON, BLAZONRY.
Besides the heraldic devices depicted on the shield, there are the following borne external to it—the helmet, the mantling, the wreath, the crest, the motto and scroll, the supporters, and the coronet.