I may take this opportunity of explaining the origin of the French name haricot. I sought for it formerly in vain;[1712] but I noticed that Tournefort[1713] (_Instit._, p. 415) was the first to use it. I called attention also to the existence of the word _arachos_ (Greek: arachos) in Theophrastus, probably for a kind of vetch, and of the Sanskrit word _harenso_ for the common pea. I rejected as improbable the notion that the name of a vegetable could come from the dish called haricot or laricot of mutton, as suggested by an English author, and criticized Bescherelle, who derived the word from Keltic, while the Breton words are totally different, and signify small bean (_fa-munno_) or kind of pea (_pis-ram_). Lettré, in his dictionary, also seeks the etymology of the word. Without any acquaintance with my article, he inclines to the theory that _haricot_, the plant, comes from the ragout, seeing that the latter is older in the language, and that a certain resemblance may be traced between the haricot bean and the morsels of meat in the ragout, or else that this bean was suitable to the making of the dish. It is certain that this vegetable was called in French _faséole_ or _fazéole_, from the Latin name, until nearly the end of the seventeenth century; but chance has led me to discover the real origin of the word haricot. An Italian name, _araco_, found in Durante and Matthioli, in Latin _Aracus niger_,[1714] was given to a leguminous plant which modern botanists attribute to _Lathyrus ochrus_. It is not surprising that an Italian seventeenth-century name should be transported by French cultivators of the following century to another leguminous plant, and that _ara_ should have been _ari_. It is the sort of mistake which is common now. Besides, _aracos_ or _arachos_ has been attributed by commentators to several _Leguminosœ_ of the genera _Lathyrus_, _Vicia_, etc. Durante gives the Greek _arachos_ as the synonym for his _araco_, whereby we see the etymology. Père Feuillée[1715] wrote in French _aricot_; before him Tournefort spelt it _haricot_, in the belief, perhaps, that the Greek word was written with an aspirate, which is not the case; at least in the best authors. I may sum up as follows:—(1) _Phaseolus vulgaris_ has not been long cultivated in India, the south-west of Asia, and Egypt; (2) it is not certain that it was known in Europe before the discovery of America; (3) at this epoch the number of varieties suddenly increased in European gardens, and all authors commenced to mention them; (4) the majority of the species of the genus exist in South America; (5) seeds apparently belonging to the species have been discovered in Peruvian tombs of an uncertain date, intermixed with many species, all American.