 In the Middle Ages, leopards were thought to be a crossbreed between a lion and a pard.Arthur Charles Fox-Davies wrote in 1909 that the distinction between lions (which were constantly rampant) and leopards (which were necessarily walking) originated in French heraldry and was brought into English heraldry along with so much else of English language and custom deriving from French traditions.But "the use of the term "leopard" in heraldry to signify a certain position for the lion never received any extensive sanction, and has long since become obsolete in British armory," though the distinction is still observed in French blazon.