The true bird’s foot, wild and cultivated in Portugal, was described for the first time in 1804 by Brotero,[545] and Cosson has distinguished it more clearly from allied species.[546] Some authors had confounded it with _Ornithopus roseus_ of Dufour, and agriculturists have sometimes given it the name of a very different species, _O. perpusillus_, which by reason of its small size is unsuited for cultivation. It is only necessary to see the pod of _Ornithopus sativus_ to make certain of the species, for it is when ripe contracted at intervals and considerably bent. If there are in the fields plants of a similar appearance, but whose pods are straight and not contracted, they are the result of a cross with _O. roseus_, or, if the pod is curved but not contracted, with _O. compressus_. From the appearance of these plants, it seems that they might be grown in the same manner, and would present, I suppose, the same advantages. The bird’s foot is only suited to a dry and sandy soil. It is an annual which furnishes in Portugal a very early spring fodder. Its cultivation has been successfully introduced into Campine.[547] _O. sativus_ appears to be wild in several districts of Portugal and the south of Spain. I have a specimen from Tangier; and Cosson found it in Algeria. It is often found in abandoned fields, and even elsewhere. It is difficult to say whether the specimens are not from plants escaped from cultivation, but localities are cited where this seems improbable; for instance, a pine wood near Chiclana, in the south of Spain (Willkomm). +Spergula+, or +Corn Spurry+—_Spergula arvensis_, Linnæus. This annual, belonging to the family of the Caryophylaceæ, grows in sandy fields and similar places in Europe, in North Africa and Abyssinia,[548] in Western Asia as far as Hindustan,[549] and even in Java.[550] It is difficult to know over what extent of the old world it was originally indigenous. In many localities we do not know if it is really wild or naturalized from cultivation. Sometimes a recent introduction may be suspected. In India, for instance, numerous specimens have been gathered in the last few years; but Roxburgh, who was so diligent a collector at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, does not mention the species. No Sanskrit or modern Hindu name is known,[551] and it has not been found in the countries between India and Turkey. The common names may tell us something with regard to the origin of the species and to its cultivation.