^o FISHES OF FANCY. 



Many prelates and some primates have borne fish crests. 

 Thus Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, and afterwards of 

 Rochester, bears the dolphin of Constantinople — a previous 

 Peter of the house having attained to the purple, and 

 transmitted it to his sons Robert and Baldwin. An azure 

 dolphin curves itself upon the arms of John Fyshar, 

 another Bishop of Rochester, who also bore three eel-spears 

 — Rochester Cathedral being dedicated to St. Andrew, 

 who was put to death with those instruments. William 

 James, Bishop of Durham, also bore a black dolphin ; 

 Henry Robinson, Bishop of Carlyle, a flying-fish ; John 

 Cameron, Bishop, and James Beaton, Archbishop, of Glas- 

 gow, carry the salmon of the city arms ; Cardinal Benli- 

 venga, a grayling ; Richard Cheney, Bishop of Gloucester, 

 the ling ; Cardinal Enrique de Guzman, two pots of eels ; 

 William Attwater, Bishop of Lincoln, three crayfish ; and 

 so on through a lengthy catalogue of prelates who have 

 gone to the fish-world for their crests. Archbishop Herring, 

 and Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, display on their 

 coats the fishes of their own name. 



Of the higher dignities of fish in heraldry, imperial and 

 royal examples have already been given. Among the 

 remainder, barbel appear in the royal arms of Bohemia 

 and Hungary, and again in the arms of Queen Margaret 

 of Anjou ; salmon on those of the Princes of Lorraine ; 

 a dried cod crowned is the arms of Iceland,* and borne 

 by the Kings of Denmark ; the crab, " an emblem of incon- 

 stancy," says Moule, appears on the shield of Francis I., 

 and, according to Sir Samuel Meyrick, is an allusion to 

 the advancing and retrograde movements of the English 

 army at Boulogne. 



Crustaceans, indeed, are curiously frequent, " The lob- 



* " Of Iceland to write is little nede, save of stock-fish " (Hakluyt). 



