62 FISHES OF FANCY. 



and in its lucid preservation of them has been veritable 

 amber. 



In badge and device, shield and crest, the fish-form is 

 very frequently recurrent, and research into the figure- 

 heads of the vessels of antiquity would probably, while 

 extending the legitimate area of heraldry, show that the 

 fish and sea-monsters which are so conspicuous in modern 

 coats-of-arms are, in some cases, the survival of the badges 

 with which the sea-going heroes of old delighted to adorn 

 their war craft. That heralds have not taken any notice of 

 this, the earliest European mode of expressing upon pro- 

 perty the distinctive emblem of the owner, is somewhat 

 remarkable, for in this old-world fashion a clue might 

 perhaps be picked up that would connect the dolphins, 

 salmons, pike, and so forth of the present day, with the 

 primitive clan-animals and totems to which I have already 

 alluded. 



Meanwhile, there is an abundance of fish-heraldry con- 

 nected with those popular beliefs which form the subjects 

 of my previous chapters ; and, indeed, the relation which 

 the present chapter bears to the rest of this pamphlet is an 

 apt simile of the relation of heraldry in general to all 

 previous history. For it traverses every subject, and con- 

 cerns itself with each phase of animism in turn. I shall 

 treat this chapter, therefore, as an epitome of those that 

 precede it, and follow fish heraldry in particular through 

 the same aspects, and in the same sequence, as I have 

 dealt with fish-lore in general. 



Fish crests and badges have, it seems to me, been 

 acquired by three means — from the resemblance of name, 

 from privileges of fishery, and from incidents in personal 

 history. To the first class belong the impresas of the 

 families of Barbel, Breame, Chub, Codd, Crabbe, Dolphin, 



