NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
135 
627 . Bird-names. — I have evoked an interesting note from Mr. Holder. 
“ Fealo” might, so far as I know, become “ felde ” or “field” or “ fel ” ; but 
surely not “ feldefare,” “fieldfare,” “ felfare ” or “ felfur.” Mr. Holder leaves 
the second syllable unexplained. Some further investigation enables me, 1 think, 
to throw some light on the woid, favourable to both of our contentions. There 
were, in fact, two Anglo-Saxon words for the bird, namely, “ feldefare ” (Wright’s 
V’ocabulary), and “ feala-for ” (Bosworth’s Dictionary). The former must 
unquestionably be from “felde” (field), and “ faran ” (fare), and mean the 
field-goer. The latter seems to be from “fealo” and “faran.” But not from 
“fealo” in its primary sense of yellow, or reddish, but in its secondary sense 
of fallow (land). A fallow was originally not untilled, but freshly ploughed 
land, showing the colour of the soil. If this be right, the senses of the two 
names are very near, one being “ field-goer,” the other “ fallow-goer.” “ Felde- 
fare ” and “ fieldfare ” may very well represent the one name, and “ felfare ” and 
“ felfur ” the other. “Fealo-for” might, no doubt, be interpreted as “yellow- 
goer,” taking “ fealo ” in its primary sense, but the comparison of “ feldefare ” 
and the habits of the bird make such an interpretation unlikely. 
Mr. Holder does not definitely accept the derivation of Knot from Canute, 
nor do I definitely reject it. I was not aware of any tradition that Canute 
delighted in eating its flesh (I am glad to have the reference to the passage in 
“ Polyolbion ”), and thought that if Knot is derivable from Canute at all it would 
be for some other reason. Camden gives another, and he is the earliest authority. 
There is also a third, that it is “ on account of its habits of feeding on the margin 
of the sea-shore close tc- the advancing waves ” (“ Birds of Sussex,” W. Botrer). 
That the Knot was esteemed a great delicacy is, however, quite true. Camden, 
in the passage of which I quoted part in my note, writes rapturously. Puittes, 
Godwitts, Knotts and Dotterells are, he says, “ ipsissimte mensarum delicice, et 
heroum dapes, gulte Proceribus expetitae.” 
J. L. Otier. 
628 . With regard to the word “field-fare” we have the name “ felty ” in 
constant use in Cumberland for this bird. The strong infusion of Norse in the 
dialect suggests a derivation from “ fjeldt.” 
Professor Skeat, in his “ Etymological Dictionary,” gives two Anglo-Saxon 
forms, “ feldefare ” and “fealo-for,” but lakes “fealo” as “reddish, yellowish, 
also fallow-land,” and thence “fealo-for” as the fallow-wanderer, expressing 
much the same as fieldfare. 
Cu 7 nberland, June, 1908. E. II . 
629 . Changes in the London Avi-fauna. — In 1852 the late Duke of 
Argyll bought Bedford Lodge (re-named Argyll Lodge), Campden Hill, as a 
town house. On going to see it he was amazed to find wild bird life soabundant, 
including nut-hatches, fly-catchers, and warblers. To a lover of birds like the 
Duke, this settled the purchase of the house. Writing forty-five years later, in 
1897, he says: “ The reed-wren no longer hangs its beautiful pensile nest amongst 
our lilac bushes. The black-cap and the willow-wren and the nut hatches have 
all deserted us ; but the starlings are as lively and busy as ever, and the cushat 
has become so lame and so familiar that its delicious voice is soothing at almost 
all hours” (“Autobiography and Memoirs of George Douglas, Eighth Duke of 
Argyll” (1823-1900), London, 1906). What changes have a further eleven years 
brought with them ? 
Hugh Boyd Wati. 
630 . Where Nightingales are Banned. —A paragraph with this 
heading has been going the round of the newspapers, on the authority of Essex 
Coujily Chtonicle, to the effect that nightingales do not sing at Havering, the 
legend being that the sirging of the birds disturbed the devotions of St. Edward 
the Confessor when at his Havering palace, and he therefore placed them under 
a bann, from which they have never recovered. During the years 1856 to 1S63 I 
frequently visited friends then living at Havering, and it was my constant habit 
during the warm nights of May and early fune to sit at the open bedroom 
listening to the luscious songs of nightingales in a neighbouring wood. I also 
occasionally heard these birds sing during the afternoon. 
K. T. Lewis. 
