LEOPARD, in The leopard has been described by some heralds as the issue of the pard and lioness; and the circumstance that such hybrids are unproductive, is assigned as a reason for appropriating that animal to the armorial ensigns of abbots and abbesses. However, the representations of leopards, at least in English heraldry, are so exactly like those of the lion passant gardant, that it has been made a question whether there is any difference between the two, and it has more especially been a keenly contested point whether the three animals in the royal escutcheon of England were lions or leopards. In early times we find theta blazoned in both ways, and the true solution of the qua'stio vexata seems to be, that at one period the heraldic leopard came to be considered as a mere synonym for the lion passant gardant, though the two animals were originally regarded as distinct. In the infancy of heraldry, before dis tinctive appellations were invented for the different attitudes of animals, it was custom ary to draw a lion in the attitude since called rampant, and a leopard as passant gardant. This difference of position sufilciently indicating which animal was meant, they were otherwise similarly represented, and no attempt was made to exhibit the spots of the leopard. By and by, as coats of armor were multiplied, it became necessary to differ ence them by varying the position of the animals depicted; and the blazoners of those days, thinking more of attitude than of zoology, had recourse to a compromie in tl:eir nomenclature. The lion was naturally supposed to be rampant and in profile, the
leopard passant gardant. When the conventional animal that might stand for either was passant and ih-profile, he was designed a lion-leoparde; and whenzampant gardant, he was a leopard-lionne. The king of beasts was very early assumed as his appropriate insignia by the sovereign of England as as by the sovereigns of other countries in western Europe. The lion was at first borne singly, and his natural attitude, like that of other lions, was considered to be rampant. But when a second and third lion were added, it became less convenient to draw them in the rampant attitude, and the lions became lions-leoparde or passant, as seen in the seal of king John; a further change of position to passant gardant made them heraldically leoptuals. Edward M., Edward the black prince, and Richard II., speak of their crest of the leopard. Nicholas Serby was desig Dated leopard herald in the reign 'of Henry IV.; and it was not till the middle of the 15th c. that the lions of England regained their original name.
Though leopards, properly so called, hardly occur in English heraldry, having passed into lions passant gardant, their heads or faces are occasionally borne. If no part of the neck is shown, the proper blazon is a leopard's face; if a portion of the neck is drawn, it is a leopard's head, erased or couped, according as it is cut off eveuly or with a jagged edge.