A bull on a billboard, a billboard on a bull?

Sirs:

Reading your interesting account of Durham’s bull, I was reminded of a characteristic of the animal to which you did not point: On the bull’s side appears a map of the U. S.

The story as it reached me is that Durham & Co. imported this animal at a great cost from the Pampas, after search for a bull on whose side was a “perfect map of the United States.”

The bull, it is said, died on the Durham & Co. lot soon after importation. But not before artists had copied his “map” to paste on the nation’s billboards.

Could and would TIME verify this?

FRANK HUGHES

Des Moines, Iowa

American Tobacco Co. recalls no actual model for Bull Durham. The U. S. map on his side was purely accidental. When noticed it was touched up to be more apparent. —ED.

— Letter to the editor of Time magazine, July 18, 1932