Note 8 — EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I.
Henry Yule translation
Jackdaws
, I believe, in spite of some doubt from the imbecility of ordinary dictionaries in such matters.
They are under this name made the object of a similitude by Dante (surely a most unhappy one) in reference to the resplendent spirits flitting on the celestial stairs in the sphere of Saturn:—
“E come per lo natural costume Le Pole insieme, al cominciar del giorno, Si muovono a scaldar le fredde piume: Poi altre vanno vià senza ritorno, Altre rivolgon sè, onde son mosse, Ed altre roteando fan soggiorno.”—Parad. XXI. 34.
There is some difference among authorities as to the details of the Polo blazon. According to a MS. concerning the genealogies of Venetian families written by Marco Barbaro in 1566, and of which there is a copy in the Museo Civico, the field is gules, the bend or. And this I have followed in the cut. But a note by S. Stefani of Venice, with which I have been favoured since the cut was made, informs me that a fine 15th-century MS. in his possession gives the field as argent, with no bend, and the three birds sable with beaks gules, disposed thus ∵.