CHAPTER II 

 BIRDS AS NATIONAL EMBLEMS 



SEVERAL nations and empires of both ancient and 

 modern times have adopted birds as emblems of 

 their sovereignty, or at least have placed promi- 

 nently on their coats of arms and great seals the figures 

 of birds. 



Among these the eagle — some species of the genus 

 Aquila — takes precedence both in time and in importance. 

 The most ancient recorded history of the human race is 

 that engraved on the tablets and seals of chiefs who 

 organized a civilization about the head of the Persian 

 Gulf more than 4000 years before the beginning of the 

 Christian era. These record by both text and pictures 

 that the emblem of the Summerian city of Lagash, which 

 ruled southern Mesopotamia long previous to its subjuga- 

 tion by Babylonia about 3000 B. C, was an eagle "dis- 

 played," that is, facing us with wings and legs spread 

 and its head turned in profile. This figure was carried 

 by the army of Lagash as a military standard; but a 

 form of it with a lion's head was reserved as the special 

 emblem of the Lagash gods, with which the royal house 

 was identified — the king's standard. 



After the conquest of Babylonia by Assyria this eagle 

 of Lagash was taken over by the conquerors, and appears 

 on an Assyrian seal of the king of Ur many centuries 

 later. "From this eagle," says Ward, 23 "in its heraldic 

 attitude necessitated by its attack on two animals [as 



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