There is something curious in the etymology of the words "apricot," "peach," and "nectarine," and in their equivalents in several languages, which may amuse your readers. The apricot is an Armenian or Persian fruit, and was known to the Romans later than the peach. It is spoken of by Pliny and by Martial. Plin. N.H., lib. xv. c. 12.: "Post autumnum maturescunt Persica, aestate _praecocia_, intra xxx annos reperta." Martial, lib. xiii. Epig. 46.: "Vilia maternis fueramus _praecoqua_ ramis, Nunc in adaptivis Persica care sumus." Its only name was given from its ripening earlier than the peach. The words used in Galen for the same fruit (evidently Graecised Latin), are [Greek: prokokkia] and [Greek: prekokkia]. Elsewhere he says of this fruit, [Greek: tautes ekleleiphthai to palaion onoma]. Dioscorides, with a nearer approach to the Latin, calls apricots [Greek: praikokia.] From _praecox_, though not immediately, _apricot_ seems to be derived. Johnson, unable to account for the initial _a_, derives it from _apricus_. The American lexicographer Webster gives, strangely enough _albus coccus_ as its derivation. The progress of the word from west to east, and then from east to south-west, and from thence northwards, and its various changes in that progress, are rather strange. One would have supposed that the Arabs, living near the region of which the fruit was a native, might have either had a name of their own for it, or at least have borrowed one from Armenia. But they apparently adopted a slight variation of the Latin, [Greek: to palaion onoma], as Galen says, [Greek: exeleleipto]. The Arabs called it [Arabic: brqwq] or, with the article, [Arabic: albrqwq]. The Spaniards must have had the fruit in Martial's time, but they do not take the name immediately from the Latin, but through the Arabic, and call it _albaricoque_. The Italians, again, copy the Spanish, not the Latin, and call it _albicocco_. The French, from them, have _abricot_. The English, though they take their word from the French, at first called it _abricock_, then _apricock_ (restoring the _p_), and lastly, with the French termination, _apricot_. From _malum persicum_ was derived the German _Pfirsiche_, and _Pfirsche_, whence come the French _peche_, and our _peach_. But in this instance also, the Spaniards follow the Arabic [Arabic: bryshan], or, with the article [Arabic: albryshan], in their word _alberchigo_. The Arabic seems to be derived from the Latin, and the Persians, though the fruit was their own, give it the same name. Johnson says that nectarine is French, but gives no authority. It certainly is unknown to the French, who call the fruit either _peche lisse_, or _brugnon_. The Germans also call it _glatte Pfirsche_.