196 JOURNAL, B031BAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol.XVIT. 



been the native West Indian name of one of the species, and "which in various, 

 corrupted shapes is applied to them over different parts of the East, is an indi- 

 cation. Crawford, it is true, in his Malay Dictionary explains nona or buah 

 (' fruic '), nona in its application to the custard-apple as J 'ructus virginalis, 

 from nona the term applied in the Malay countries (like missy in India) to an> 

 unmarried European lady.* But in the face of the American word this 

 becomes out of the question. 



" It is, however, a fact that among the Bharhut sculptures, among the 

 carvings dug up at Muttra by General Cunningham and among the copies from 

 wall paintings at Ajanta (as pointed out by Sir G. Birdwood in 1874,) see 

 AtJieneum, 26th October, [Bombay Gazetteer xii, 490], there is a fruit repre- 

 sented, which is certainly very like a custard apple (though an abnormally big 

 one), and not very like anything else yet pointed out. General Cunningham 

 is convinced that it is a custard apple, and urges in corroboration of his 

 view that the Portuguese in introducing this fruit (which he does not deny), 

 were merely bringing coals to Newcastle ; that he has found extensive 

 tracts in various parts of India covered with the wild custard apple ; and also 

 that this fruit bears an indigenous Hindi name ata or ,at from the Sanskrit 

 atripya. 



" It seems hard to pronounce about this atripya. A very high authority,. 

 Professor Max Miiller, to whom we once referred, doubted whether the word 

 (meaning ' delightful') ever existed in real Sanskrit. It was probably an 

 artificial name given to the fruit, and he compared it aptly to the factitious- 

 Latin of au reum malum for 'orange,' though the latter word really comes 

 from the Sanskrit naranga. On the other hand, atripya is quoted by Raja 

 Radhakaut Deb, in his Sanskrit Dictionary, from a Medieval work, the 

 Dravyaguna, And the question would have to be considered how far the- 

 MSS. of such a work are likely to have been subject to modern interpolation. 

 Sanskrit names have certainly been invented for many objects, which were 

 unknown till recent centuries. Thus for example Williams gives more than 

 one word for cactus, or prickly pear, a class of plant which was certainly 

 introduced from America (see Vidara and Visvasaraha in his Sanskrit 

 Dictionary.) 



" A new difficulty, moreover, arises as to the indigenous claims of ati, which 

 is the name for the fruit in Malabar, as well as in Upper India. For on turning 

 for light to the splendid works of the Dutch ancients, Rheede and Rumphius, 

 we find in the former (Hortm Maldbaricus, Part 1Y) a reference to a certain 

 author, ' Beechus de Plantis Mexicanis, ' as giving a drawing of a custard- 

 apple tree, the name of which in Mexico was aJiate or ate, \fructu apvd 

 Mexicanos pracellenti arbor ndbilis ' ; (the expressions are noteworthy, for- 

 the popular Hindustani name of the fruit is sharifa = ' nobilis '). We also 

 find in a Manilla vocabulary, that ate or atte is the name of this fruit in the 



* The word Nona is not originally Malay, but adopted from the old Portuguese Nona, a 

 iviri, from the Latin, Nonna ; Ital.. Nona : French, Nome. — F. L. 



