An otter's head, sometimes called a seal's head, for it is impossible to distinguish the heraldic representations of the one or the other, appears in many coats of arms of different families of the name of Balfour, and two otters are the supporters belonging to the head of the Scottish house of Balfour.
The Ermine, the Stoat, and the Weasel, &c., are not very often met with, but the ermine appears as the crest of Crawford and the marten as the crest of a family of that name.
Fig. 411.—Urcheon.
The Hedgehog, or, as it is usually heraldically termed, the Urcheon (Fig. 411), occurs in some number of coats. For example, in the arms of Maxwell ["Argent, an eagle with two heads displayed sable, beaked and membered gules, on the breast an escutcheon of the first, charged with a saltire of the second, surcharged in the centre with a hurcheon (hedgehog) or, all within a bordure gules">[, Harris, and as the crest of Money-Kyrle.
The Beaver has been introduced into many coats of late years for those connected in any way with Canada. It figures in the arms of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, and in the arms of Christopher.
The beaver is one of the supporters of the city of Oxford, and is the sole charge in the arms of the town of Biberach (Fig. 412). Originally the arms were: "Argent, a beaver azure, crowned and armed gules," but the arms authorised by the Emperor Frederick IV., 18th July 1848, were: "Azure, a beaver or."
Fig. 412.—Arms of the town of Biberach. (From Ulrich Reichenthal's Concilium von Constanz, Augsburg, 1483.)