The names of the different kinds of grain present the same kind of indefiniteness that belongs to fermented liquors and fruits. General terms, derived, like corn, or grain, or triticum, from the notion of grinding, or the like; or the words froment, from frumentum, frui, and oats, Anglo-Saxon ata, Sanskrit ad, to eat, tell us nothing as to particular species or varieties of grain. The meanings of such words shift with circumstances. The word corn, for instance, which means wheat in England, is always used for maize in the United States. Of course the cultivation of grain by the early Aryans is an acknowledged fact, proved by a mass of evidence; but the particular kinds of grain which they cultivated are, and perhaps always will be, somewhat doubtful. Some of the evidence which M. Pictet has to offer, as to details, is as follows:

In Sanskrit, wheat is known as mlec'c'hâça, mlec'c'habhog'ana, that is to say, food of the barbarians. Such a name seems, at first sight, to argue that the Indians did not possess this grain, and that it was not known to the ancient Aryans; but the difficulty is removed by the consideration that the centre and south of India are too hot for wheat to flourish, while in the north, in the regions of the barbarians, the climate suits it. When the Indian branch of the Aryans descended into the warm regions they now occupy, they would naturally drop the cultivation of wheat. The name of wheat is no doubt from its being the white grain, but its name is often confused with that of barley, so that, though it is probable that the Aryan race may have cultivated both wheat and barley, the philologist alone cannot prove this, and must call in the aid of the botanist. The name of rye is a striking example of this indefiniteness in the names of different kinds of grain, and M. Pictet goes into an elaborate comparison of terms in support of the view that rye, Anglo-Saxon ryge, Polish rez, Thracian ẞpiga, is the same word as rice, Polish ryz, Greek öpvğa, the whole being referred to Sanskrit vrihi—a name which is applied to rice, and involves merely the idea of growing. The case seems satisfactorily made out that the names for these two different grains are the same, and that in all probability the Indian branch, when they came down into a rice-growing country, applied to this grain their old name for rye, but the proof has the effect to our minds of sweeping away the last vestige of certainty in tracing the cultivation of any particular grain back to a remote period and a distant country, by purely linguistic evidence. The name of the pea, Latin pisum, is found in Sanskrit as peçi, and its etymology involves, probably, the sense of pounding.

We pass over a number of other plants, respecting which, M.

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Pictet has collected most valuable information. It is evident that the subject has not been yet brought into a state fit for the use of the ethnologist, though we are by no means prepared to offer a contradiction of our author's view that the plants, wild and cultivated, whose names go back to Aryan origin, all belong to a flora which can only have subsisted in a temperate region, and which has a generally European character.

Fortunately, the specific characters of animals are much more definitely distinguished by their names than those of plants, and the study of the names of domestic and wild creatures, even down to small insects, will suffice to give a general view of the fauna of the region inhabited by our race before its separation. Setting aside questions of varieties, the ox, horse, sheep, goat, pig, dog, were undoubtedly known by them, while there seems no direct proof of their having domesticated the ass and the cat. We can do no more than allude to M. Pictet's remarks on the names of the camel. The existence of a German name, resembling that of the elephant but applied up to medieval times to the camel, is a curious phenomenon, which has attracted much attention. The Gothic ulbandus, Old German olpenta, Anglo-Saxon olfand, are all terms for the camel, and the coincidence has usually been thought an excellent example of the way in which the popular mind might confuse the names of two great beasts of distant countries. Our author takes velibādu, the ancient Slavonic name of the camel, to be a name explainable in Sanskrit, as vala-bandha, big-body, and apparently not the same word as elephant.

The domestication of poultry, as M. Pictet remarks, belongs to an advanced state of civilization. The name of the goose is one of the best examples of the name of an animal running through the whole of the Aryan languages, Sanskrit hañsa (the laugher), Old German kans, Anglo-Saxon gos, Scandinavian gas. The Greek xv has lost the final sibilant, and Latin anser probably the initial aspirate, and there are a score of other equivalents in the languages of Europe and Asia. The names of the swan and duck are sometimes confused with that of the goose. An objection might be raised to M. Pictet's argument, that though very early records show the goose domesticated in Greece and India, and there is very strong ground for believing that the Aryans had it in a domesticated state before the separation, yet various species of geese are found wild over Europe and Asia, and the common name makes no distinction between a wild goose and a tame one. The same remark applies yet more forcibly to the duck.

M. Pictet, considering the cock to be descended from the Himalayan species, argues that the ancient Aryans had it domesticated in their poultry-yards, though in early times the Greeks seem not to have been acquainted with it. Its name is an imitation of its ery, Sanskrit kukkuta, Slavonic kokoshu, Anglo-Saxon cocc, similar names being applied to very different birds, as Lithuanian kukuttis to the hooppoe, French cocotte, a very general name applied to the parrot, and English cockatoo. To Skr. kánuka, Persian kanak, belong Gothic hana, German hahn, of which we have only the feminine form in hen, and their meaning is "the singer", Skr. kan, Latin canere, while gallus, Persian gâl, has a similar origin.

The bee and honey were well known to the Aryan race, but evidence fails to prove the existence of the art of bee-keeping.

The mouse is called in Sanskrit mûsha, that is to say, "the thief," from mush, to steal, and the name goes through almost the whole circle of the Aryan languages, Greek μûs, Latin mus, Slavonic myshi, etc. The flea, Latin pulex, Anglo-Saxon flach is referred to Skr. pulaka, which has the general sense of parasitic insect and a derivation from the root pul, to swarm. The name of the fly, Sanskrit makshika, Latin musca (whence mosquito), Greek uvia, German mücke, English midge, includes several insects, to which the derivation from the root maç, to sound, as being humming insects, is more or less applicable.

The similarity of the Hebrew name of the lion, levi, lavia, with leo, etc., makes it a difficult matter to know whether we are to refer both to one origin or not, and Coptic laboi, used both for bear and lion, makes the question still more perplexed. Our author considers the European name of the king of beasts, Latin leo, Greek λéwv, Old German lewo, Slavonic livu, Lithuanian lutas, as genuine Aryan words connected with the root lû, to tear, or destroy. The lion existed in Thrace, etc., up to a comparatively late period, and M. Pictet makes the not improbable suggestion that the Cave-Lion was still living in Central Europe at and after the arrival of the divisions of the Aryan race. With the bear, there is of course no difficulty in considering its name to be lineally descended from that in use in Bactria, or wherever the Aryans may have lived in Central Asia. The Sanskrit rksha, Greek apkоs, aрKтоs, Latin ursus, are clearly allied. The wolf and the fox, whose names are sometimes confounded, infested the flocks and farmyards of the Aryans.

M. Pictet refers the name of the badger, Latin taxus, Italian tasso, German dachs, to the Sanskrit root taksh as being "the cutter," and

accounts for the mention of skins of tachash, translated "badgers' skins" in the Book of Numbers, as having come by commerce with Persia, and attaches more certainty to this conclusion than seems at all prudent.

The otter is an animal whose name, Greek evvôpis, Lithuanian udrà, is clearly significant of its living in the water, and allied to Sanskrit udra and to the root ud, to wet; but this word, as its sense allows, is used also for the crab; while in Zend the meaning of udra is in like manner doubtful between the otter and the beaver, to both of which it is equally applicable. The name of the beaver, found almost throughout Europe, as in Latin fiber, Anglo-Saxon, beofer, Lithuanian bebrus, etc., appears to be an Aryan word transferred from other animals, or at least belonging indefinitely to several, as in Sanskrit babhru, rat and ichneumon, Persian bibar, mouse. Its meaning is apparently "the brown animal." The hare, German hase, Sanskrit çaça, is "the leaper;" while Greek Mayws is compared with the Sanskrit root lagh, transilire, and laghu, light, swift. The rabbit, or coney, Latin cuniculus, belongs to the verb khan, to dig, whence canal, etc., names derived from which are also applied in Sanskrit to the rat, and in Russian, etc., to the marten, from their burrowing habits. The name of the crow, Sanskrit kârava, is of great philological interest. In Sanskrit a number of words are formed by prefixing the interrogative particles ka, kat, ku, etc., to nouns with a sense of depreciation. The name of the crow is thus derived from ka-ârava— "what a voice!" This formation is common enough, as in such instances as kad-adhvan, a bad street, literally "what a street!" and ku-vanga, lead, literally "what tin!"

But the absence of such a mode of formation in the European languages gives a high interest to such words as are to be found in them, which seem to have been formed in this way while the language was still in a state which admitted of such a formation, which is found clearly defined in Sanskrit. Professor Pott has made an elaborate examination of such words in the new edition of his Etymologische Forschungen. To the Sanskrit name of the crow, kârava, is compared Latin corvus, whence, by transmission, English crow; while AngloSaxon hreafn, raefen, English raven, are allied by real relationship with some form similar to kârava, but with an n at the end of it. With reference to the raven, M. Pictet states the curious but speculative question, whether the extraordinary similarity between the Semitic names for the raven, Hebrew 'oreb, Arabic ghurab, which have no known etymology, and those of the Aryan language, make it

probable that the Hebrew name of the raven, which is mentioned early in the book of Genesis, is of Aryan origin.

With reference to the inquiry whether the ancient Aryans were acquainted with the ocean, or with some inland sea only, M. Pictet's remarks on the names of various shells should be noticed. The connection between Sanskrit çankha, Greek κóyxn, Latin concha, has often been remarked, and would seem, at first sight, to prove that the fact of the ancient Aryans having a name for the great sea-conchs, used for trumpets and vases, must show that they were familiar with marine products, and, therefore, with the sea, before their separation. M. Pictet gives a very plausible etymology of çankha, by comparing it with çâkhâ, a horn, which being used for a drinking-vessel and a trumpet, would be extremely likely to pass to the great shells which were used for precisely the same two purposes. But his reasoning, that the common name proves anything whatever about the proximity to the sea of the people who used it, breaks down utterly on other grounds. The argument "for it is not to be believed that shells should have been the object of distant commerce at so remote a period" is quite worthless, seing that it is a known fact that hardly any objects of nature or art do travel so far even among barbarous tribes as the large and beautiful ocean-shells. The fact of the great shells of the Gulf of Mexico having been carried at remote periods from tribe to tribe of North America, far up into Canada, is a sufficient answer to the argument that the possession of sea-shells by the Aryans proves anything as to their geographical position. Our author's remarks on the name of the oyster, which, though not in Sanskrit, is found through the European branches of the race, tend to prove that the western section of the race became acquainted with it at a very early period, and in this instance it is reasonable to suppose that they must have lived somewhere near the sea-coast where it is found, as at so early a period the edible oyster would not be carried far.

In concluding his remarks on the animal kingdom, M. Pictet calls attention to the very suggestive consideration, that the Aryan race seem to have gone, so to speak, to first principles, in naming the animals with which they were acquainted, by some epithet characteristic of the qualities distinguishing them, not applying to them old words inherited from some other stage of development of language, with their forms mutilated, and their sense lost. The idea of the fathers of our race having begun at the beginning, not only in developing their civilization, but even in naming the plants and animals around them, from general terms expressing their quality, gives us a sense