Note 347 — ENGLAND.

This word Pixy, is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutive sy being added to Puck, like Betsy, Nancy, Dixie. So Mrs. Trimmer in her Fabulous Histories—which we read with wonderful pleasure in our childhood, and would recommend to our young readers—calls her hen-robins Pecksy and Flapsy. Pisgy is only Pixy transposed. Mrs. Bray derives Pixy from Pygmy. At Truro, in Cornwall, as Mr. Thoms informs us, the moths, which some regard as departed souls, others as fairies, are called Pisgies. He observes the curious, but surely casual, resemblance between this and the Greek ψυχη, which is both soul and moth. Grimm (p. 430) tells us from an old glossary, that the caterpillar was named in Germany, Alba, i. e. Elbe, and that the Alp often takes the form of a butterfly.