NEW NATIONAL ANIMALS. T HE old States of the world have
long been represented by animals, either as the national crest or as a kind of accepted " totem." The British lion, the Austrian and Prussian eagles, the Napo conic eagles and bees, the Gallic cock, the Chinese dragon,—all these are or have been part of the official insignia of nations. New nations and States - have been springing up all over the world, and these, especially those of British origin, have nearly all selected an animal of some kind as the national emblem, and have made it the official crest or " totem " of their State. These totems are sometimes engraved on the bonds of the new communities, and in at least sixty cases are also printed on their stamps. Their selection is not arbitrary, but in general has reference to the origins or peculiarities of the new country. In many cases the bird or beast or fish is a link with the past story of the community of a very interesting kind. Their adoption, and as it were consecration, show a sentimental phase of the human mind at a time when young communities are successfully emerging from the ordeal of their early struggles. They are not as significant as the manna and rod in the Ark, or the unleavened bread, true national emblems of particular events. But they signify something very much more than the old heraldic emblems of fortitude, strength, or pride, like the lion, or the eagle, or the dragon. Some are legitimate descendants of the Roman she-wolf emblem,—the bronze memorial of a belief that young Rome would have perished had not the rudest forces in Nature aided its infant days. The animal which was the staple product of the Colony or State in early days, such as the Canadian beaver, is a favourite choice, as the golden ram is still the totem of Leeds. Others record the existence of creatures just discovered when the Colony was founded, or which especially struck the imagination of the settlers, just as the Phocaean colonists of Marseilles took the seal which followed their ships for the emblem on their coins. In almost every case the new " national animal" recalls a reference to historical events or natural products of a distinctive character, and it seems worth while to refer to them and their story while the causes of their adoption are recent.
Our oldest Colony, Newfoundland, has a. stamp on which is a hair seal, in memory. of the old sealing business which with the cod fishing was the staple of the old, North-Western trade. Not to be ungrateful to the other and more lasting source of the national wealth, the two-cent stamp has for chief bearing a codfish proper, swim- ming. A third issue of Newfoundland stamps shows not the trade animal, but the one which national sentiment thinks most highly of, the large Newfoundland dog. A whole library of history might be attached to the first two emblems, from Hakluyt to the papers of the Fishery Award in which the United States paid us £1,500,000 for infringement of our rights on these North Atlantic waters. Some •of the United States stamps are almost illustrations of national history. A large four-cent scarlet stamp shows a buffalo on a prairie with a Red Man in pursuit, and another teams of horses ready to start drawing after them the self-binding reaping machines first made for prairie use ! Canada very early took, the beaver for its crest, a very natural and proper return to the animal which first invited Colonists to venture there in any numbers, though whether the practical return made was of the kind the beaver would have preferred is another matter. Historically viewed, the beaver is to the insignia of Canada what the tunny-fish was on the coins of Cyzicus, a kind of advertise- ment of a former staple industry. The maple-leaf is the Canadian tribute to sentiment, while the beaver records "business." Australia and New Zealand combine zoology with history on some of their stamps. New Zealand and the different Governments now federalised in Australia each select a typical animal, but New South Wales adds a short historical reference. The latter Colony backs up the English symbolism by which " Mr. Punch " and others typify the Australian Commonwealth as a kangaroo. In the issue of stamps of 1870 a kangaroo stands upright, and over it is the significant legend " One Hundred Years." In other words, the stamp was issued just a century after Captain Cook; on his first voyage, discovered Botany Bay and first saw the kangaroo. Western Australia takes for its emblem the black swan. This bird is almost as typical of -the continent as is the emu. Some were brought to Holland before the discoveries of Captain Cook; but the black
swans—once among the commonest of Australian birds, and certainly the most remarkable to European precon- ceptions of what was possible or impossible in Nature—used to be among the first living things seen off the coast of the continent, until the greedy sealers took to hunting the swans for the sake of their down, and killed them by tens of thousands on the sand bars off the principal harbours. Japan engraves the osprey on her stamps, and sometimes scenes from bird life, recalling the vignettes of Bewick on a space the size of a sixpence. Among the speci- mens before the writer are a stamp for fifteen sen engraved in mauve, and another labelled " Wuku " Local Post. Both are engraved by native artists. The first shows a long-tailed tit searching for food in a pine branch, and the second a flight of wild-fowl alighting on the water.
But such subjects are too fine and curious for ordinary European fancy, which likes something more solid, and occasionally is directly commercial. Thus Newfoundland in 1897, being probably either anxious to attract visitors or
lroud of its forests, shows a dead cariboo deer and a eather-skirted hunter by its side, and labels this " Cariboo- hunting, — Newfoundland Sport." New Zealand in her stamp issues is ornithologically inclined, possibly because more than one of her public men have been great natural- ists, and have written monumental works on their country's birds. The apteryx is the most interesting survival of the strange wingless fauna of the islands, and is duly commemorated on the postal issues. So is another bird, apparently a species of mynah, one which is probably well- known to New Zealanders. But by far the most interesting bird- emblem of a modern State is that of the Republic of Guate- mala. It has been adopted as the national crest for so long that (partly through the taste for stamp-collecting) the exist- ence of one of the rarest and most beautiful of the bird- creation has been made far more widely known than it other- wise would have been. There is a race of birds called trogons, most of which have very fine feathers and remarkable colour- ing. They are found in India and the Malays, but are most numerous in Central and Southern America. It was from their plumage that the Mexicans made their famous mosaics of feather-work. From the tail feathers they made the lustrous green helmets of their kings and nobles. The most gorgeous of all was the long-tailed or resplendent trogon, which was kept as a sacred or Royal bird in the Palace of
Montezuma, or in one of the two houses which formed the Royal Menagerie. " One of these houses held birds of prey only ; the other birds of gorgeous plumage. Three hundred men, according to Cortes, were employed to take care of these birds, besides physicians who prescribed for them. Of the three hundred attendants, some procured their food; others distributed it; others took care of the eggs at the time of incubation ; whilst others at the proper time • picked off portiais of their plumage (or picked up the shed plumes), for the King was not only delighted by the sight of so many beautiful birds, but was very careful of their plumes for use in the arts for which they were needed." Adequate description of the bird is almost impossible. It has a rounded plume on the head, cascades of feathers falling from the back over the shoulders, plumes falling over the tail a yard long, and a most elegant contour. The colour'of the whole of the upper surface and plumes is a most resplendent golden green, that of the breast and under parts crimson scarlet. Such is the national emblem of Guatemala.
Our Indian and Far Eastern States are not at all behind the rest of Great Britain in their desire to commemorate famous " natural commodities " of one kind or another, but the picturesque and the terrible play a part in these devices. Pahang takes for its representative beast a tiger, either roaming or slinking through the jungle. North Borneo shows the native rusa deer, an inhabitant of its impenetrable jungles of swamp grass. The Seychelles "sport " their famous tortoise under the usual cocoa-nut palm, and the Federated Malay States a tiger bounding from the jungle. The Rajah of Travancore emblazons a device which is variously interpreted as a sacred shell and a coiled cobra. Time will show how many of these emblems will become permanently associated with the countries which use them on their stamps and securities. But it cannot be questioped that many of the totems are well chosen, and show considerable " grace of congruity." It is public feeling which really gives currency to any of these fancies. If the greater number prove acceptable, there will be a very large addition to the zoological side of the political cartoons of the future.
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