Falcons usually have bells strapped to their legs with thongs called jesses, and then are blazoned as _jessed_ and _belled_. They are sometimes _hooded_ also. The hood covering the eyes has an opening for the beak and is usually decorated with a tuft of feathers. A cock is said to be _armed_ with his beak and spurs, _crested_ as to his comb, and _jowlopped_ of his wattles. A peacock when it carries its train raised and fully spread is blazoned, with great and obvious propriety, “a peacock in his pride,” but simply as a peacock, without qualification, when the tail is trailed. The pelican, the well-known emblem of maternal love, is shown standing in her nest and feeding her brood with blood from her breast, and with her wings in a displayed position with the points downward in an attitude of protection. In this position she is called a pelican in her piety. As an imaginary variant of an actual thing it may be convenient to refer here to the martlet, the very distinctive heraldic bird without feet, the “martlette of the sunne,” as old armorists call it. It is shaped like a swallow but without feet, for it was believed to live entirely in the air. Hence it was assigned as a mark of cadency to the fourth son, who, being so far from succession to the land, had only his own powers to sustain him (see Fig. 294). Martlets form part of the arms that are ascribed to Edward the Confessor, though in the example at Westminster Abbey the birds distinctly have feet and may perhaps have been meant for some other bird altogether, perhaps doves, whose symbolism of peace caused their early appearance among Royal insignia. [Illustration: Seal of the Emperor Sigismund, as King of Hungary.] [Illustration: Seal of Charles IV. as Emperor.] [Illustration: Seal of Dauphiny, 1494.] [Illustration: Italian Medal by Pisano, 1441.] [Illustration: Italian Medal, attributed to Bartolo Talpas, XVth Century.] Of imaginary birds the phoenix is most interesting as a symbol of the perpetuation of life, and early writers never tired of describing in elaborate detail how the fabled bird, which they, however, accepted and believed in as a natural fact, effected his rejuvenescence through fire of his own kindling. Therefore the phoenix is represented in heraldry as resting upon its pyre. In recent times it has been customary to depict the bird as shaped like an eagle, but in earlier examples the head was crested like a peacock. Its proper colour was purely fanciful, some examples of great beauty being blue and gold, the preponderance of tincture varying with the fancy of the artist.