ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA. LILY-OUZEL.
93. We have got so far, by help of our first example, in the etymology of our entire class, as to rest in the easily memorable root 'dab,' short for dabble, as the foundation of comprehensive nomenclature. But the earlier (if not Aryan!) root 'dip,' must be taken good heed to, also, because, as we further study the customs of aquatic chickens, we shall find that they really mass themselves under the three great heads of 'Duckers,' birds that duck their heads only, and stick up their tails in the air;—'Dippers,' birds that take real dips under, but not far down, in shallow water mostly, for things at the bottom, or else to get out of harm's way, staying down about as long as we could ourselves, if we were used to it;—and 'Divers,' who plunge like stones when they choose,—can go nobody knows how deep in the deep sea,—and swim under the water just as comfortably as upon it, and as fast, if not faster.
But although this is clearly the practical and poetical division, we can't make it a scientific one; for the dippers and dabblers are so like each other that we must take them together; and so also the duckers and divers are inseparable in some of their forms: so that, for convenience of classing, we must keep to the still more general rank I have given—dabchick, duck, and gull,—the last being essentially the aerial sea-bird, which lives on the wing.
94. But there is yet one more 'mode of motion' to be thought of, in the class we are now examining. Several of them ought really to be described, not as dipchicks, but as trip-chicks; being, as far as I can make out, little in the habit of going under water; but much in the habit of walking or tripping daintily over it, on such raft or float as they may find constructed for them by water-lily or other buoyant leaves. Of these "come and trip it as you come" chicks,—(my emendation of Milton is surely more reasonable than the emendations of commentators as a body, for we do not, any of us, like to see our mistresses "trip it as they go")—there are, I find, pictured by Mr. Gould, three 'species,' called by him, Porzana Minuta, Olivaceous Crake; Porzana Pygmæa, Baillon's Crake; and Porzana Maruetta, Spotted Crake.
Now, in the first place, I find 'Porzana' to be indeed Italian for 'water-hen,' but I can't find its derivation; and in the second place, these little birds are neither water-hens nor moor-hens, nor water-cocks nor moor-cocks; neither can I find, either in Gould, Yarrell, or Bewick, the slightest notice of their voices!—though it is only in implied depreciation of their quality, that we have any business to call them 'Crakes,' 'Croaks,' or 'Creaks.' In the third place, 'Olivaceous' is not a translation of 'Minuta,' nor 'Baillon's' of 'Pygmæa,' nor 'spotted' of 'Maruetta'; which last is another of the words that mean nothing in any language that I know of, though the French have adopted it as 'Marouette.' And in the fourth place, I can't make out any difference, either in text or picture, between Mr. Baillon's Crake, and the 'minute' one, except that the minute one is the bigger, and has fewer white marks in the center of the back.
95. For our purposes, therefore, I mean to call all the three varieties neither Crake nor Porzan, but 'Allegretta,' which will at once remind us of their motion; the larger one, nine inches long, I find called always Spotted Crake, so that shall be 'Allegretta Maculata,' Spotty Allegret; and the two little ones shall be, one, the Tiny Allegret, and the other the Starry Allegret (Allegretta Minuta, and Allegretta Stellaris); all the three varieties being generally thought of by the plain English name I have given at the head of this section, 'Lily-Ouzel' (see, in § 7, page 5, the explanation of my system of dual epithet, and its limitations. I note, briefly, what may be properly considered distinctive in the three kinds.)
II.A.
ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, MACULATA. SPOTTED ALLEGRET.
96. Water-Crake or 'Skitty' of Bewick,—French, 'Poule d'eau Marouette,' (we may perhaps take Marouette as euphonious for Maculata, but I wish I knew what it meant);—though so light of foot, flies heavily; and, when compelled to take wing, merely passes over the tops of the reeds to some place of security a short distance off. (Gould.) The body is "in all these Rails compressed" (Yarrell,—he means laterally thin), which enables them to make their way through dense herbage with facility. I can't find anything clear about its country, except that it 'occasionally visits' Sweden in summer, and Smyrna in winter, and that it has been found in Corfu, Sicily, Crete,—Whittlesea Mere,—and Yarley Fen;—in marshes always, wherever it is; (nothing said of its behavior on ice,) and not generally found farther north than Cumberland. Its food is rather nasty—water-slugs and the like,—but it is itself as fat as an ortolan, "almost melts in the hand." (Gould.) Its own color, brown spotted with white; "the spots on the wing coverts surrounded with black, which gives them a studded or pearly appearance." (Bewick,—he means by 'pearly,' rounded or projecting.) Hence my specific epithet. Its young are of the liveliest black, "little balls of black glistening down," beautifully put by Mr. Gould among the white water Crowfoot (Ranunculus Aquatilis), looking like little ducklings in mourning. "Its nest is made of rushes and other buoyant materials matted together, so as to float on, and rise or fall with, the ebbing or flowing of the water like a boat; and to prevent its being carried away, it is moored or fastened to a reed." (Bewick.)
II.B.