Fishes, as borne in arms, have recently been made the subject of an able, most interesting, and beautifully illustrated volume.[101] In my _en passant_ survey of the ensigns of armory it will suffice to remark that the _dolphin_ takes the same rank among heraldric fishes as the lion occupies among quadrupeds, and the eagle among birds; after him the _pike_, _salmon_, _barbel_, and _trout_ hold an honourable place, and even the _herring_ and _sprat_ are not deemed too mean for armory. Neither have shell-fish been overlooked: the _escallop_ in particular, from its religious associations, has always been a special favourite. AMPHIBIA, REPTILES, and INSECTS sometimes occur, particularly _toads_, _serpents_, _adders_, _tortoises_, _scorpions_, _snails_, _grasshoppers_, _spiders_, _ants_, _bees_, and _gad-flies_. It is singular that such despised and noxious creatures as the scorpion and the toad should have been adopted as marks of honour; yet such, in former times, was the taste for _allusive_ arms that the Botreuxes, of Cornwall, relinquished a simple antient coat in favour of one containing three toads, because the word 'botru' in the Cornish language signified a toad! The HUMAN FIGURE and its parts are employed in many arms. The arms pertaining to the bishopric of Salisbury contain a representation of "our blessed Lady, with her son in her right hand and a sceptre in her left." The arms of the see of Chichester are the most singular to be found in the whole circle of church heraldry. They are blazoned thus: 'Azure, _Prester-John_ hooded, sitting on a tomb-stone; in his sinister hand an open book; his dexter hand extended, with the two fore-fingers erect, all or; _in his mouth_ a sword, fessewise, gules, hilt and pommel or, the point to the sinister.'[102] Prester or Presbyter-John, the person here represented, was a fabulous person of the middle ages, who was imagined to sway the sceptre of a powerful empire _somewhere_ in the East, and who must have been a very long-lived personage, unless he was _reproduced_ from time to time like the phoenix of antiquity. Many writers, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, make mention of him. Sir John Maundevile describes his territory, which, however, he did not visit. That country, according to his statement, contained rocks of adamant,[103] which attracted all the ships that happened to come near them, until the congeries appeared like a forest, and became a kind of floating island. It also abounded in popinjays or parrots as "plentee as gees," and precious stones large enough to make "plateres, dissches, and cuppes." "Many other marveylles been there," he adds, "so that it were to cumbrous and to long to putten it in scripture of bokes." He describes the Emperor himself as "cristene," and believing "wel in the Fadre, in the Sone, and in the Holy Gost," yet, in some minor points, not quite sound in the faith. As to his imperial state, he possessed 72 provinces, over each