They are still known as _ayacot_, especially the red haricot, spotted with black or violet.

One day at the house of Gaston Paris I met a famous scholar.

Hearing my name, he rushed at me and asked if it was I who had discovered the etymology of the word haricot.

He was absolutely ignorant of the fact that I had written verses and published the _Trophees_."-- A very pretty whim, to count the jewellery of his famous sonnets as second in importance to the nomenclature of a vegetable! I in my turn was delighted with his _ayacot_.

How right I was to suspect the outlandish word of American Indian origin! How right the insect was, in testifying, in its own fashion, that the precious bean came to us from the New World! While still retaining its original name--or something sufficiently like it--the bean of Montezuma, the Aztec _ayacot_, has migrated from Mexico to the kitchen-gardens of Europe.
But it has reached us without the company of its licensed consumer; for there must assuredly be a weevil in its native country which levies tribute on its nourishing tissues.