The Haricot-Weevil 



searching through a fine sixteenth-century 

 work on natural history, Hernandez' De 

 Historia plantarum novi orbis. The word 

 haricot was unknown in France until the 

 seventeenth century: we used to say feve or 

 phaseol; in Mexican, ayacot. Thirty vari- 

 eties of haricot were cultivated in Mexico 

 before the conquest. They are called ayacot 

 to this day, especially the red haricot, with 

 black or violet spots. One day, at Gaston 

 Paris' house, I met a great scholar. On 

 hearing my name, he rushed at me and 

 asked if it was I who had discovered 

 the etymology of the word haricot. He 

 was absolutely ignorant of the fact that 

 I had written poems and published Les 

 Trophees. 



What a glorious jest, to place the jewellery 

 of his sonnets under the protection of a 

 bean! I in my turn am delighted with the 

 ayacot. How right I was to suspect that 

 strange word haricot of being an American- 

 Indian idiom ! How truthful the insect was 

 when it declared, in its own fashion, that the 

 precious seed reached us from the New 

 World! While retaining its first name, or 

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