REGIMENTAL PETS

In the late eighteenth century, a wild billy goat showed up on a New England battlefield as patriots captured the flag of the Royal Welsh infantry regiment. Believing the green cloth to be an immense leaf, the ruminant snatched it and carried it across the plains, into the royalist lines, where the redcoats recovered it.

Ever since, the regiment has kept a billy goat, known by the name of "William Windsor".

William, in his Welsh green drapery, attracting children's attention.

Another fine picture of William and his human aide.

But William is not as unusual as the Honorary Colonel of Norway's Royal Guard: a male king penguin residing at Edinburgh Zoo. The flightless bird is called Nils after Nils Egelien, the lieutenant who suggested that a penguin should be adopted in the 1970s; and Olav after the then-reigning king of Norway, Olav V. The flightless bird has even been knighted by a British general!

Sir Nils Olav in all his finery.