In spite of its undoubtedly African origin, it does not appear that the species was cultivated in Lower Egypt before the Arab rule. No proof has been found in ancient monuments, although Rosellini thought he recognized the plant in a drawing, which differs widely from it according to Unger.[932] The existence of one name in modern Indian languages, according to Piddington, confirms the idea of its propagation towards the East after the beginning of the Christian era. +Vine+—_Vitis vinifera_, Linnæus. The vine grows wild in the temperate regions of Western Asia, Southern Europe, Algeria, and Marocco.[933] It is especially in the Pontus, in Armenia, to the south of the Caucasus and of the Caspian Sea, that it grows with the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper, clinging to tall trees and producing abundant fruit without pruning or cultivation. Its vigorous growth is mentioned in ancient Bactriana, Cabul, Kashmir, and even in Badakkhan to the north of the Hindu Koosh.[934] Of course, it is a question whether the plants found there, as elsewhere, are not sprung from seeds carried from vineyards by birds. I notice, however, that the most trustworthy botanists, those who have most thoroughly explored the Transcaucasian provinces of Russia, do not hesitate to say that the plant is wild and indigenous in this region. It is as we advance towards India and Arabia, Europe and the north of Africa, that we frequently find in floras the expression that the vine is “subspontaneous,” perhaps wild, or become wild (_verwildert_ is the expressive German term). The dissemination by birds must have begun very early, as soon as the fruit existed, before cultivation, before the migration of the most ancient Asiatic peoples, perhaps before the existence of man in Europe or even in Asia. Nevertheless, the frequency of cultivation, and the multitude of forms of the cultivated grape, may have extended naturalization and introduced among wild vines varieties which originated in cultivation. In fact, natural agents, such as birds, winds, and currents, have always widened the area of species, independently of man, as far as the limits imposed in each age by geographical and physical conditions, together with the hostile action of other plants and animals, allow. An absolutely primitive habitation is more or less mythical, but habitations successively extended or restricted are in accordance with the nature of things. They constitute areas more or less ancient and real, provided that the species has maintained itself wild without the constant addition of fresh seed.