THE BRITISH LEOPARDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 260, 2 November 1932, Page 10

THE BRITISH LEOPARDS.

In a recent issue in your report on Drake's Golden Hind you make the same error about the Three Leopards of the Royal Standard, that is always being made. They are not lions! England never had the lion in her heraldry! Scotland has the Brabant lion, the red lion of Alexander (from Flemish source); Wales has the red "dragon" of Cadwallader, and London has the "griffin," both mythical beasts, but the only claim to the lion is that of the Lion of Judah, opposite the "bull" or unicorn of Israel in the Royal Arms, representation of the strains of the blood of David, the last but two of the kings of the conjoined kingdom of Israel and Judah, in our Royal House. If your readers cared to sec the Scotch variey of lion, there is a sample on a pillar in Waipu, in the North of Auckland, who, some of the irreverent Sassenachs of the district say, looks like a dissipated prize-fighter, holding his gloves all wrong. That as it may be. He is representative of a fine race, who have always been made to put on the gloves, where wrongs are to be righted. Y. NORTHERNER,