Page:A Complete Guide to Heraldry.djvu/492

 The arms of the Royal Burgh of Dundee are quite unique. The official blazon runs: "Azure, a pott of growing lillies argent, the escutcheon being supported by two dragons, their tails nowed together underneath vert, with this word in an escroll above a lilie growing out of the top of the shield as the former, 'Dei Donum.'" Though blazoned as dragons, the creatures are undoubtedly wyverns.

Wyverns when figuring as supporters are usually represented standing on the one claw and supporting the shield with the other, but in the case of the Duke of Marlborough, whose supporters are two wyverns, these are generally represented sejant erect, supporting the shield with both claws. This position is also adopted for the wyvern supporters of Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Bart., and the Earl of Eglinton.

Two cockatrices are the supporters of Lord Donoughmore, the Earl of Westmeath, and Sir Edmund Nugent, Bart., and the dexter supporter of Lord Lanesborough is also a cockatrice.

The basilisk is the same creature as the cockatrice, and in the arms of the town of Basle (German Basel), is an example of a supporter blazoned as a basilisk. The arms are: "Argent, a crosier sable." The supporter is a basilisk vert, armed and jelloped gules.

The supporters of the Plasterers' Company, which were granted with the arms (January 15, 1556), are: "Two opinaci (figures very similar to griffins) vert pursted (? purfled) or, beaked sable, the wings gules." The dexter supporter of the arms of Cape Colony is a "gnu."

The zebra, the giraffe, and the okapi are as yet unclaimed as supporters, though the giraffe, under the name of the camelopard, figures in some number of cases as a crest, and there is at least one instance (Kemsley) of a zebra as a crest. The ass, though there are some number of cases in which it appears as a crest or a charge, does not yet figure anywhere as a supporter, nor does the mule. The hyena, the sacred cow of India, the bison, the giant-sloth, and the armadillo are all distinctive animals which still remain to be withdrawn from the heraldic "lucky bag" of Garter. The mythical human-faced winged bull of Egyptian mythology, the harpy, and the female centaur would lend themselves well to the character of supporters.

Robertson of Struan has no supporters matriculated with his arms, and it is difficult to say for what length of time the supporters now in use have been adopted. But he is chief of his name, and the representative of one of the minor barons, so that there is no doubt that supporters would be matriculated to him if he cared to apply. Those supporters in use, viz. "Dexter, a serpent; sinister, a dove, the heads of each encircled with rays," must surely be no less unique than is the strange compartment, "a wild man lying in chains," which is borne