There are no proofs or signs of its existence in ancient Egypt. No Hebrew name is known answering to the _Phaseolus_ or _Dolichos_ of botanists. A less ancient name, for it is Arabic, _loubia_, exists in Egypt for _Dolichos lubia_, and in Hindustani as _loba_ for _Phaseolus vulgaris_.[1703] As regards the latter species, Piddington only gives two names in modern languages, and those both Hindustani, _loba_ and _bakla_. This, together with the absence of a Sanskrit name, points to a recent introduction into Southern Asia. Chinese authors do not mention _P. vulgaris_,[1704] which is a further indication of a recent introduction into India, and also into Bactriana, whence the Chinese have imported plants from the second century of our era. All these circumstances incline me to doubt whether the species was known in Asia before the Christian era. The argument based upon the modern Greek and Italian names for the haricot, derived from _fasiolos_, needs some support. It may be said in its favour that it was used in the Middle Ages, probably for the common haricot. In the list of vegetables which Charlemagne commanded to be sown in his farms, we find _fasiolum_,[1705] without explanation. Albertus Magnus describes under the name _faseolus_ a leguminous plant which appears to be our dwarf haricot.[1706] I notice, on the other hand, that writers in the fifteenth century, such as Pierre Crescenzio[1707] and Macer Floridus,[1708] mention no _faseolus_ or similar name. On the other hand, after the discovery of America, from the sixteenth century all authors publish descriptions and drawings of _Phaseolus vulgaris_, with a number of varieties. It is doubtful that its cultivation is ancient in tropical Africa. It is indicated there less often than that of other species of the Dolichos and Phaseolus genera. It had not occurred to any one to seek the origin of the haricot in America till, quite recently, some remarkable discoveries of fruits and seeds were made in Peruvian tombs at Ancon, near Lima. Rochebrune[1709] published a list of the species of different families from the collection made by Cossac and Savatier. Among the number are three kinds of haricot, none of which, says the author, is _Phaseolus vulgaris_; but Wittmack,[1710] who studied the leguminæ brought from these same tombs by Reiss and Stubel, says he made out several varieties of the common haricot among other seeds belonging to _Phaseolus lunatus_, Linnæus. He had identified them with the varieties of _P. vulgaris_ called by botanists _Oblongus purpureus_ (Martens), _Ellipticus præcox_ (Alefeld), and _Ellipticus atrofuscus_ (Alefeld), which belong to the category of dwarf or branchless haricots.