NEW NATIONAL EMBLEMS 269 



the unleavened bread, true national emblems of par- 

 ticular events. But they signify something very 

 much more than the old heraldic emblems of fortitude, 

 strength, or pride, like the lion or the eagle or the 

 dragon. Some are legitimate descendants of the 

 Roman she-wolf emblem the bronze memorial of a 

 belief that young Rome would have perished had not 

 the rudest forces in Nature aided its infant days. 

 The animal which was the staple product of the 

 colony or state in early days, such as the Canadian 

 beaver, is a favourite choice, as the golden ram is 

 still the totem of Leeds. Others record the existence 

 of creatures first discovered when the colony was 

 founded, or which especially struck the imagination 

 of the settlers, just as the Phocaean colonists of 

 Marseilles took the seal which followed their ships 

 for the emblem on their coins. In almost every case 

 the new " national animal " recalls a reference to 

 historical events or natural products of a distinctive 

 character, and it seems worth while to refer to them 

 and their story while the causes of their adoption are 

 recent. 



Our oldest colony, Newfoundland, has a stamp 

 on which is a hair seal, in memory of the sealing 

 business which with the cod-fishing was the staple 

 of the old North-Western trade. Not to be un- 

 grateful to the other and more lasting source of the 

 national wealth, the two-cent stamp has for chief 

 bearing a codfish proper, swimming. A third issue 

 of Newfoundland stamps shows not the trade animal, 

 but the one which national sentiment thinks most 



