The STAG may in early times have been put up as a religious type. As such it is of constant occurrence in the catacombs and in early Christian sculptures, in allusion to Psalm xlii., “Like as the hart desireth the water brook, so longeth my soul after thee, O God!”[228] The Stag is still a very common sign. A publican on the Fulham Road has put up the sign of the Stag, and added to this on the tympanum: “Rex in regno suo non habet parem,” the application of which is best known to mine host himself. The BALDFACED STAG is seen in many places: baldfaced is a term applied to horses who have a white strip down the forehead to the nose. At Chigwell in Essex there is a BALD HIND, and in the High Street, Reading, a BALD FACE, both evidently derived from the last-named stag. Various combinations also occur, as the STAG AND CASTLE, at Thornton, near Hinckly; the STAG AND PHEASANT, rather common; both these, doubtless, allude to the game seen in parks, or in the neighbourhood of noblemen’s seats; the STAG AND OAK, the Cape, Warwickshire, points towards a similar origin, but the STAG AND THORN at Traffick Street, Derby, seems to be a union of two signs, for the THORN appears in the same street on another public-house. There is, however, a sort of tree called the Buck-Thorn, which possibly may have been corrupted into the Buck and Thorn, and hence the Stag and Thorn. The RISING DEER (Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Yorkshire) and the RISING BUCK (Sheinton, Shropshire) have a decided deer-stalking smack about them, affording us a glimpse of the cautious stag rising from the heather, pricking his ears and sniffing the wind. The RANGED DEER was the sign of the King’s gunsmith in the Minories, 1673.[229] At that period this street was full of smiths: “The Mulcibers who in the Minories sweat And massive bars on stubborn anvils beat, Deform’d themselves, yet forge those stays of steel Which arm Aurelia with a shape to kill.”--_Congreve._ This ranged deer was simply intended for the Reindeer, which animal had then just newly come under the notice of the public; their knowledge of it was still confused, and its name was spelled in various ways, such as: _rain-deer_, _rained-deer_, _range-deer_, and _ranged-deer_.