972 The American Naturalist. November, 
the turkey appears then as new and as American as maize. I found it, 
however, abundantly used in the Stucco ceiling decorations (by Vittorio, 
middle of 16th century) of the Villa Masser near Castel Franco. 
If there remains any doubt as to the genuine antiquity of the grains 
in Rifaud’s Egyptian tomb no better evidence for or against the Amer- 
ican origin of the plant now grown in Europe could be looked 
for than what these unransacked pictures and ornaments may offer, 
where at slight pains and by a turn of the head, any traveller will settle 
the question beyond all dispute if he discovers maize in color or stone 
before 1492 
While common parlance in the Old World has so often held to a 
geographical name for the strange grain, dubbing it in Lorraine 
“Roman grain,” in Tuscany “Sicilian grain,” in Sicily “ grain of 
India,” in the Pyrenees “Spanish grain," in Provence “ Barbary or 
Guinea grain,” in Turkey “ Egyptian grain,” and in Egypt “Syrian 
grain," these Folk names have seemed by implication to deny, in 
every case, an American origin to the plant. But the fact in De Can- 
dolle's opinion proves no more than that the English name “ Turkey " 
has appeared to deny an American parentage to the familiar Meleagris 
gallopavo. 
According to Professor Keller of the University of Padua, the 
human consumption of maize ceases south of Bologna, and in my con- 
versations with townspeople a slight notion of something ridiculous 
seemed to attach to the grain, as of a food fit for hogs and cows, rather 
than men. Notwithstanding this, some of the peasants eat maize in 
the common form of Polenta (boiled mush) to such an extent in the 
Novarese, Bergamasco, Milanese, Comasco, Bresciano, and Tremonese, 
and in Mantua, Veneto and Vercelli’ that a sickness called Pelagra, 
showing itself in shrunken skin, emaciation, dizziness, intense thirst, 
and a desire to plunge into pools of water, is the result. 
Leaving out the alcohols, oils, colors and glucose extracted from 
Italian maize in recent years, the most considerable and important of 
all the human uses of the grain in Italy is 
(1) Polenta, the universally mill ground meal boiled with salt and 
water for balf an hour, large doughy loaves of which, saffron yellow or 
white, can be found in almost any peasant's cupboard from Venice to 
Piedmont. 
Sometimes cut slices of it are found, as I saw them at Venice, fried, 
like American fried mush. 
*For this and the following information as to Anellis Bread and Pane Mistura Iam 
indebted to the Rey. Signor Anelli of Monza. 
