PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 231 



number of varieties, at least in Pliny's time. The mural 

 paintings at Pompeii frequently represent the tree with 

 its fruit. 1 



The lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy gathered 

 wild apples in great quantities, and among their stores 

 pears are sometimes, but rarely, found. Heer has given 

 an illustration of one which cannot be mistaken, found 

 at Wangen or Robenhausen. It is a fruit narrowing 

 towards the stalk, 28 mm. (about an inch and a half) 

 long by 19 mm. (an inch) wide, cut longitudinally so as 

 to show the small quantity of pulp as compared to the 

 cartilaginous central part. 2 None have been found in 

 the lake-dwellings of Bourget in Savoy. In those of 

 Lombardy, Professor Raggazzoni 3 found a pear cut length- 

 ways, 25 mm. by 16. This was at Bardello, Lago di Varese. 

 The wild pears figured in Duhamel, Traitedes Arbres,Qdit. 2, 

 are 30 to 33 by 30 to 32 mm.; and those of Laristan, figured 

 in the Jar din Fruitier du Museum under the name P. 

 balansce, which seem to me to be of the same species, and 

 undoubtedly wild, are 26 to 27 mm. by 24 to 25. In 

 modern wild pears the fleshy part is a little thicker, but 

 the ancient lake-dwellers dried their fruits after cutting 

 them lengthways, which must have caused them to shrink 

 a little. No knowledge of metals or of hemp is shown 

 in the settlements where these were found; but, con- 

 sidering their distance from the more civilized centres of 

 antiquity, especially in the case of Switzerland, it is 

 possible that these remains are not more ancient than 

 the Trojan war, or than the foundation of Rome. 



I have mentioned three Greek and one Roman name, 

 but there are many others; for instance, pauta in 

 Armenian and Georgian ; vatzkor in Hungarian ; in Slav 

 languages gruscha (Russian), hrusska (Bohemian), kruska 

 (Illyrian). Names similar to the Latin pyrus recur in 

 the Keltic languages ; peir in Erse, per in Kymric and 

 Armorican. 4 I leave philologists to conjecture the Aryan 



1 Comes, III. Piante nei Dipinti Pompeiani, p. 59. 



2 Heer, Pfahlbauten, pp. 24, 26, fig. 7. 



3 Sordelli, Notizie Stat. Lacustre di Lagozza. 



* Nemnich, Polyglott. Lex. Naturgesch. ; Ad. Pictet, Origines Indo- 

 Europ., i. p. 277 ; and my manuscript dictionary of common names. 



