The BULL’S NECK is a sign at Penny Hill, Holbeach, and the BUFFALO HEAD is common in many places. The latter was the sign of one of the coffee-houses near the Exchange, during the South Sea bubble, and was hung up over the head quarters of a company for a grand dispensary, capital £3,000,000. The rage for joint-stock companies had come to such a pitch at that period, that an advertisement appeared stating:-- “THIS DAY the 8th instant at Sam’s Coffeehouse behind the Royal Exchange, at three in the afternoon, a book will be opened, for entering into a joint copartnership for carrying on a _thing_ that will turn to the advantage of those concerned.” Not less than £28,000,000 were asked for at that period to enter upon various speculations. At the Buffalo Head Tavern, Charing Cross, Duncan Campbell, the deaf and dumb fortune-teller, used at one time to deliver his oracles. He is immortalised in the _Spectator_, No. 474, where, in answer to the letter of a lady inquiring about Duncan’s address, a note is entered, “That the Inspector I employ about Wonders, inquire at the Golden Lyon, opposite the Halfmoon Tavern, Drury Lane, into the merit of this silent sage.”[260] Among the combinations in which the Bull is met with on signboards, the BULL AND DOG is one of the most common, derived, like the Bull and Chain, from the favourite sport of bull-baiting, which amusement is described at full length and in brilliant colours by Misson, in his “Travels.” A comical variation of this is the BULL AND BITCH at Husborn Crawley, Woburn. In the sign of the BULL AND BUTCHER,[261] the bull is placed in still worse company; this was very forcibly expressed on the sign of a butcher in Amsterdam, who was represented with a glass of wine in his hand, standing between two calves, and pledging them with the cruel words,-- “Zyt verblyt Soo lang gy er zyt.”[262] The BULL AND MAGPIE, which occurs at Boston, has been explained as meaning the Pie, πιναξ, and the Bull of the Romish Church; but this looks very like a cock-and-bull story. As “some help to thicken other proofs that also demonstrate thinly,” as Iago has it, it may be asked whether this might not have arisen out of the sign of the “Pied Bull,” thus leading to the “Pie and Bull,” or the “Bull and Magpie;” the transition seems simple and easy enough; but should this not be considered satisfactory, since we have the “Cock and Bull,” and the “Cock and Pie,” we may by a sort of rule of three manœuvre obtain the Bull and Pie or Magpie. _See under_ Bird Signs. The BLACK BULL AND LOOKING-GLASS is named in an advertisement in the original edition of the _Spectator_, No. lxviii., as a house in Cornhill. It was evidently a combination of two signs.