d,
with the inevitable modifications, the ancient word _faseolus_.

Now, if I consult my dictionary I find: _faselus_, _faseolus_,
_phaseolus_, haricot. Learned lexicographer, permit me to remark that
your translation is incorrect: _faselus_, _faseolus_ cannot mean
haricot. The incontestable proof is in the Georgics, where Virgil tells
us at what season we must sow the _faselus_. He says:--

Si vero viciamque seres vilemque faselum ...
Haud obscura cadens mittet tibi signa Bootes;
Incipe, et ad medias sementem extende pruinas.

Nothing is clearer than the precept of the poet who was so admirably
familiar with all matters agricultural; the sowing of the _faselus_ must
be commenced when the constellation of Bootes disappears at the set of
sun, that is, in October; and it is to be continued until the middle of
the winter.

These conditions put the haricot out of the running: it is a delicate
plant, which would never survive the lightest frost. Winter would be
fatal to it, even under Italian skies. More refractory to cold on
account of the country of their origin, peas, broad beans, and vetches,
and other leguminous plants have nothing to fear from an autumn sowing,
and prosper during the winter provided the climate be fairly mild.

What then is represented by the _faselus_ of the Georgics, that
problematical vegetable which has transmitted its name to the haricot in
the Latin tongues? Remembering that the contemptuous epithet _vilis_ is
used by the poet in qualification, I am strongly inclined to regard it
as the cultivated vetch, the big square pea, the little-valued _jaisso_
of the Provencal peasant.

The problem of the haricot stood thus, almost elucidated by the
testimony of the insect world alone, when an unexpected witness gave me
the last word of the enigma. It was once again a poet, and a famous
poet, M. Jose-Maria de Heredia, who came to the aid of the naturalist.
Without suspecting the service he was rendering, a friend of mine, the
village schoolmaster, lent me a magazine[9] in which I read the
following conversation between the master-sonneteer and a lady
journalist, who was anxious to know which of his own works he preferred.

"What would you have me say?" said the poet.

"I do not know what to say, I do not know which sonnet I prefer; I have
taken horrible pains with all of them.... But you, which do you prefer?"

"My dear master, how can I choose out of so many jewels, when each one
is perfe