Animals
Heraldic depictions of "real" animals need not, and usually do not, exactly resemble the actual creatures. Mythical creatures used in heraldry are sometimes called "monsters".
Except the griffin, beasts in heraldry are male unless otherwise specified.
Read more about this topic: List Of Heraldic Charges
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“Of all animals the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The alcoholic trance is not just a haze, as though the eyes were also unshaven. It is not a mere buzzing in the ears, a dizziness or disturbance of balance. One arrives in the garden again, at nursery time, when the gentle animals are fed and in all the world there are only toys.”
—William Gass (b. 1924)