The annexed singular bearing, 'a cup with a boar's head erect,' evidently alludes to some obsolete custom or tenure. [Illustration] It may be remarked here that many of the terms of heraldry, when applied to the parts and attitudes of 'beastes of venerie and huntyng,' are identical with the expressions used by learned _chasseurs_ of the 'olden tyme,' and which are fully elucidated by Dame Julyan, Manwood, Blundeville, and other writers on woodcraft and the chase; a _science_, by the way, as systematic in the employment of terms as heraldry itself. This remark applies equally to the technical words in falconry used in describing falcons, hawks, &c., when they occur in armory. When antient armorists had so far departed from the propriety of nature as to paint swans red and tigers green, it was not difficult to admit still greater monstrosities. Double-headed and double-tailed lions and eagles occur at an early date; but these are nothing when compared with the double and triple-_bodied_ lions figured by Leigh.[99] It would be a mere waste of time to speculate upon the origin of such bearings, which owe their birth to "the rich exuberance of a Gothick fancy"--the fertile source of the chimerical figures noticed in the next chapter. Among BIRDS, the _eagle_ holds the highest rank. The lyon was the royal beast--this the imperial bird. He is almost uniformly exhibited in front, with expanded wings, and blazoned by the term 'displayed.' The _falcon_, _hawk_, _moor-cock_, _swan_, _cock_, _owl_, _stork_, _raven_, _turkey_, _peacock_, _swallow_, and many others of the winged nation are well known to the most careless observer of armorial ensigns. The _Cornish chough_, a favourite charge, is curiously described by Clarke as "a _fine blue or purple black-bird_, with red beak and legs," and said to be "a noble bearing of antiquity, being accounted the _king of crows_!" The _pelican_ was believed to feed her young with her own blood, and therefore represented "vulning herself," that is, pecking her breast for a supply of the vital fluid.[100] The wings are usually indorsed or thrown upwards; "but this," says Berry, "is unnecessary in the blazon, as that is the only position in which the pelican is represented in coat-armour." This may be true of modern heraldry, but antiently this bird was borne 'close,' that is, with the wings down. The pelicans in the arms of the family of Pelham, resident at Laughton, co. Sussex, temp. Henry IV, were represented in this manner, as appears from a shield in one of the spandrels of the western door of Laughton church, and from some painted glass in the churches of Waldron and Warbleton. In a carving of the fifteenth century, among the ruins of Robertsbridge Abbey, the pelicans have their wings slightly raised, and in the modern arms of Pelham they are indorsed, as shown below. [Illustration: Laughton Church.] [Illustration: Robertsbridge Abbey.] [Illustration: Modern Arms.]