The unicorn first became a supporter of the royal arms in James I.’s time, when it displaced the red dragon of Wales, introduced by Henry VII. Unicorns had been supporters of the Scottish royal arms for about a century before the union of the two crowns. A representation of the unicorn often appeared in City shows. Cooke, in his ‘City Gallant,’ 1599, makes a City apprentice exclaim: ‘By this light I doe not thinke but to be Lord Mayor of London before I die, and have three pageants carried before me, besides a ship and an unicorn.’ This fabulous creature should have the tail of a lion, the legs of a buck or goat, the head and body of a horse, and a single twisted horn in the middle of its forehead. It was used as a sign by chemists and goldsmiths: by the former, because the horn was considered an antidote to all poisons; by the latter, on account of the immense value put upon it. ‘Andrea Racci, a Florentine physician, relates that it had been sold by the apothecaries at £24 per ounce, when the current value of the same quantity of gold was only £2 3s. 6d.’ (Larwood and Hotten, p. 160.) The horn thus esteemed was probably narwhal’s horn. The arms of the Apothecaries’ Company are supported by unicorns. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. BIRDS AND OTHER SCULPTURED SIGNS. ‘Emblems of Christ and immortality.’ THE next group of sculptured signs I should like to consider is that in which birds are represented. Several of them clearly had an heraldic origin; but I am not aware that this was the case with the Crane--a pretty sign empanelled in a delicate moulding of small cut-brick, which stood over the entrance to Crane Court, Lambeth Hill. [Illustration] It is said to have been destroyed in the year 1871. One is reminded of the Three Cranes in the Vintry, not far off, mentioned by Stow, Ben Jonson, and others, the site of which is still marked by Three Cranes Wharf, Upper Thames Street. The ‘Annals of John Stow,’ continued by Howes, were ‘imprynted at the Three Cranes, in the Vintrie.’ A sign of the same description was the Four Doves, which, forty years ago, was to be seen in front of a modern house in St. Martin’s le Grand. Archer, who drew it, suggests that it was a rebus on the joint owners of the property. The four doves had the initial letters W. G. I. J. Beneath was the inscription-- ‘This 4 DOVE Ally 1670.’ Four Dove Alley is marked in Horwood’s map a short distance south of Angel Street, King’s Court intervening. It is now covered by the buildings of the General Post Office.