196 
NATURE NOTES. 
small moat, about thirty-five yards long by five wide, with grating at each end to 
confine the fish, and fed by a spring that rose a hundred yards off. The water 
was generally as clear as possible, but during rain it was not so ; and as it passed 
through a water-cress bed before entering my garden, and also through a second 
smaller bed that I cultivated close to the moat, an unusual amount of insect food, 
in the shape of caddis of all kinds which live on the water-cress, was close at 
hand. Indeed, I attribute the large size and fine condition of my fish, confined 
as they wese in a comparatively small tract of water, to this simple way of feeding 
them. My trout became, to some extent, tame, and had no objection to my 
presence, and they used to look out for worms, &c., that I often threw to them. 
I stocked my moat with small trout which in a few years grew to a large size ; one 
scaled almost 6 lbs., and none were under a pound weight. They often used to 
fight, and their fighting was as fierce as that of bull dogs. Often have I gone to 
the side of the moat when I saw that a battle was going on, and have stood for 
half an hour or so, close to a couple of big fellows, and seen the whole affair as 
plainly as if it occurred in the middle of my dining room. The evidences of a 
fight can be detected at once. It always takes place on the surface of the pool. 
The back fin of the fish is erected and stands straight out of the water, as well as 
part of the tail. The combatants swim slowly round each other, almost in- 
variably side by side, sometimes as far as two yards apart, with their heads in 
opposite directions, like two ships seeking to ram. Then one suddenly turns and 
rushes at the other, endeavouring to seize him just above the tail. If he succeeds 
in thus gripping him he shakes him with all his might, and holds on for some 
considerable time, driving him broadside through the water. Why these fights 
occur I cannot say for certain ; they generally take place in the summer, and thus 
some time before the spawning season. It may be that some favourite part of the 
water, or the mastery of the pool is the teterrima causa belli ; or perhaps even in 
the summer arrangements are made for the coming breeding season. The fight 
usually ends by one of the combatants acknowledging that he is beaten ; they 
then swim quietly away. The combats that I have witnessed have been between 
fish of about equal size. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
Market IVesion, Thetford, Norfolk. 
Flycatcher Query. — A flycatcher has a nest under a window in the rose 
tree, and did not mind anyone looking at it or being near it. Four eggs were 
laid, and then one hatched (the other eggs disappeared). Three days after the 
little one also vanished. Did they take it away? No cat or anything could get 
at the nest, as the window was shut all day. 
Martins Heron, Bracknell, Berks. B. 
Communities of Pigs. — I read in an old number of the Saturday Review 
(I think) that when droves of pigs were turned out into the feeding grounds in Sicily, 
they formed communities and seemed to have some social system. I cannot now 
find the reference. Can anyone tell me what the evidence for this is, or mention 
any books on natural history, or Sicilian stock-keeping, that would be likely to 
deal with the question? 
Borehani, IVarminster. JOHN U. PoWELL. 
Field Names. — In the Norfolk parish in which I was brought up, almost 
every field has a name, many of them, no doubt, of great antiquity and interest ; 
others modern and merely distinctive, and chiefly in regard to their size, or some 
other physical peculiarity. In the parish alluded to we have plenty of fields 
and meadows, but no close, leaze, tyning, barton, or hayes. But we have 
“The Plains,” “The Mashes” (i.e., marshes), “ The Pamments ” (? pavements), 
“The Bleach,” “The Black Breck,” “Lammas Meadow,” “The Hospital 
Meadows” (though I never could discover any traces of a former hospital or old 
monastery here), a field called “ Hills and Holes,” “ The Beggar’s Bush Field,’’ 
and many others. Large fields in Norfolk are plentiful. My great grandfather 
took a farm on the Kaynham estate, of which one field was 500 acres ! In this 
county, Stafford, however, we find many “Leasowes” (which maybe identical 
with the leaze mentioned by Canon Ellacombe in Nature Notes for 1893, 
p. 164), while Barton and Hayes are met with as the names of villages. So is 
