III. THE DABCHICKS. 



113 



call all the three varieties neither Crake nor 

 Pcrzan, 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 Alle- 

 gretta 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 7, the explana- 

 tion of my system of dual epithet, and its limita- 

 tions). I note, briefly, what may be properly 

 considered distinctive in the three kinds. 



II.A. ALLEGRETTA NYMPH^A, 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, flics heavily; and, 

 wlien compelled to take wing, merely passes 

 over the tops of the reeds to some place of 

 security a short distance off. (Gould.) The 



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