734 The American Naturalist. [August, 
The word epo was transferred in Latin to large fruit, for Pliny!" 
says distinctly that “ caucumeres,’ when of excessive size, are 
called “ pepones.” By the commentators the word pepo is often 
applied to the melon. Fuchsias'” in 1542 figures the melon 
under the Latin name pepo, German pfeden; and Scaliger ™ in 
1566, Dalechamp"* in 1587, and Castor Durante *” in 1617 
apply this term pepo or pepon likewise to the melon. The 
derivatives from the word pepo appear in the various European 
languages, as follows : 
Belgian: pepoenem, Lob. Obs., 1 576; pompoen, Marcg., 1648, 
Vilm., 1833. 
English: pepon, Lyte, 1586; pompon, Lyte, 1586; pompion, 
Ger. 1597; pumpion, J. Smith, 1606 ; pumpkin, Townsend, 1726. 
French: pompons, Ruel., 1536; pepon, Dod. Gat., 1559. 
Italian: popone, Don, 1834. 
Swedish: pumpa, Tengborg, 1764 ; pompa, Webst. Dict. 
In English the word melon and million was early applied to the 
pumpkin, as by Lyte in 1586, Gerarde in 1597 and 1633, and by 
a number of the early narrators of voyages of discovery. Pump- 
kins were called gourds by Lobel in 1586, and by Gerarde in 
1597, and the word gourd is at present in use in England to em- 
brace the whole class, and is equivalent to the French courge. 
In France the word courge is given by Matthiolus in 1558, and 
Pinzus in 1561, and seems to have been used as applicable to 
the pumpkin by early navigators, as by Cartier in 1535. The 
word courge was also applicable to the Lagenaria in 1536, 1561, | 
1586, 1587, 1597, 1598, 1617, 1651, 1673, 1772, and is now 
shared with the pumpkin and squash in 1883. | 
Our earlier travelers and historians often recognized in the 
pumpkin a different fruit from the courge, the gourd, or the melon. 
Cartier, on the St. Lawrence in 1584 discriminates by using the 
words “gros melons, concombres, and courges 35," "" or ina 
m Pliny, lib. XIX., c. 23, Grandsagne Ed., p. 196. 
J? Fuchsius. De Stirp., 1542, 701. 
H3 Scaliger. In Lib. de Plant. Arist., 1566, 79, 110. 
n4 Hist. Gen. Lugd., 1587, I 
115 Castor Durante. Herb. Noa. 1617. 
H6 Cartier. Bref. Recit., etc., 1545. Reimpr. Tross., 1863. 
