_Avena strigosa_, Schreber, appears to be a variety of the common oats, judging from the experiments in cultivation mentioned by Bentham, who adds, it is true, that these need confirmation.[1895] There is a good drawing of the variety in Host, _Icones Graminum Austriacorum_, ii. pl. 56, which may be compared with _A. sativa_, pl. 59. For the rest, _Avena strigosa_ has not been found wild. It exists in Europe in deserted fields, which confirms the hypothesis that it is a form derived by cultivation. _Avena orientalis_, Schreber, of which the spikelets lean all to one side, has also been grown in Europe from the end of the eighteenth century. It is not known in a wild state. Often mixed with common oats, it is not to be distinguished from them at a glance. The names it bears in Germany, Turkish or Hungarian oats, points to a modern introduction from the East. Host gives a good drawing of it (_Gram. Austr._, i. pl. 44). As all the varieties of oats are cultivated, and none have been discovered in a truly wild state, it is very probable that they are all derived from a single prehistoric form, a native of eastern temperate Europe and of Tartary. +Common Millet+—_Panicum miliaceum_, Linnæus. The cultivation of this plant is prehistoric in the south of Europe, in Egypt, and in Asia. The Greeks knew it by the name _kegchros_, and the Latins by that of _milium_.[1896] The Swiss lake-dwellers of the age of stone made great use of millet,[1897] and it has also been found in the remains of the lake-dwellings of Varese in Italy.[1898] As we do not elsewhere find specimens of these early times, it is impossible to know what was the _panicum_ or the _sorghum_ mentioned by Latin authors which was used as food by the inhabitants of Gaul, Panonia, and other countries. Unger[1899] counts _P. miliaceum_ among the species of ancient Egypt, but it does not appear that he had positive proof of this, for he has mentioned no monument, drawing, or seed found in the tombs. Nor is there any material proof of ancient cultivation in Mesopotamia, India, and China. For the last-named country it is a question whether the _shu_, one of the five cereals sown by the emperors in the great yearly ceremony, is _Panicum miliaceum_, an allied species, or sorghum; but it appears that the sense of the word _shu_ has changed, and that formerly it was perhaps sorghum which was sown.[1900]