316 The Tavern Signs of Wiltshire and their Origin. 
shooting, and fishing, which are now in vogue. This will account 
in part for the multiplicity of “ Bear” inns, though the bear was 
also the cognizance of more than one wealthy landowner, and so 
would have been adopted by his retainers on that account. Indeed 
it is extremely difficult to distinguish signs borrowed from the 
animal world, and those taken from heraldry ; though it may be 
assumed as certain that all fantastically coloured signs are un- 
questionably of heraldic origin. For the frequency then with which 
the Bear inn is to be met with, there is little doubt that the savage 
sport (!) of bear-baiting is the origin; and this seems the more 
probable, when we notice that this sign, though eight times repeated 
in the county, is confined to the towns or large villages, wherein 
alone so expensive ar amusement would be held. We have the sign 
of the Bear, in Wiltshire, at Devizes, Melksham, Chippenham, Box, 
Malmesbury, Cricklade, Trowbridge, and Marlborough, which com- 
prise most of the larger towns in the county, and the smallest of 
which has a population of over two thousand. 
To the same cause the ferocious sport (so called) of bull-baiting, 
which was as popular in the towns of England in olden time, as the 
bull-fight is in Spain at this day, we are indebted for the pl 
favourite sign of the “ Bull.” 
Then again we have the “ Cock,” than which no bird was more 
wantonly ill-treated: for “the barbarous and wicked diversion of 
throwing at cocks” (as Strutt rightly terms it) was a pastime 
generally indulged in at all the wakes and fairs, which were held in 
the early spring, more especially on Shrove Tuesday. We have the 
“ Fighting Cocks,’ which speaks for itself; and the “ Falcon.” 
Moreover we have the “ Stag,” and “ Stag’s Head ;” the “ Fox,” the 
« Hor and Hounds,” the latter a very favourite sign for the last three 
hundred years, and, so far as we can see, likely to be so for three 
hundred years more: the “ Hare and Hounds ;” the “ Greyhound ;” 
the “ Soho;” the “ Dog and Gun;” the “ Pheasant;” the “ Roe- 
buck;” the “ Running Horse;” the “ Nog’s Head,” five times 
repeated in the county, and of frequent occurrence throughout 
England; though it is strange that the “ Horse’s Head” never 
occurs; and lastly, the “ Black Horse,” represented eleven times in 
