127 



Annual. Flowers from June to the end of August. 

 Cattle are fond of the foliage of this grass, but the quantity pro- 

 duced is too trifling to be of any value, independent of its short 

 duration as a summer annual. In corn-fields it is sometimes very 

 troublesome, especially in poor, light soils, where, once introduced, it 

 is very dif&cult of extirpation, without laying down the land in grass. 

 In such situations it usually towers over the short straw of the barley 

 and wheat, and, if abundant, completely overshadows the crop ; not 

 only starving the latter, by abstracting nourishment from the ground, 

 but preventing the ears from ripening. Its habit is the same, wherever 

 met with, from within the Arctic Circle in Lapland to the banks of the 

 Nile, being alike known in all parts as a weed of cultivation, while its 

 wild origin is no more traceable than that of the corn it accompanies. 

 It has been asserted to be the progenitor of the cultivated oat, which is 

 further said to readily degenerate into this assimied wild form ; the 

 result of many years of experiment and observation renders me doubtful 

 of such being the case — certainly some five and twenty summers growth 

 of Avenafatua in rich soil, and with diversified periods of sowing, have 

 left it as it was from the commencement. 



The twisted awns are occasionally employed as hygrometers, on 

 account of their ready extension and contraction under different con- 

 ditions of the atmosphere as to humidity or dryness. The same pro- 

 perty, associated with the bundle of rigid hairs or bristles pointing 

 forwards at the base of the fruit, assists in its dispersion while lying on 

 the ground, as well as in eventually burying it in the soil; every 

 alternate extension and contraction of the awn tending to move it in 

 a backward or downward direction, as the bristles effectually prevent 

 its return. Hence it is often termed the Walking Oat or Animal Oat, 

 a name likewise applied to A. sterilis, an exotic species, a native of 

 Barbary, and nearly allied to this, if not, indeed, a southern form of 

 the same. 



The resemblance Of the flowers, or rather of the awned fruits, to 

 some of the artificial flies used by anglers, is so striking, that they are 

 occasionally employed as substitutes; and that the fish recognise the 

 likeness seems evident, from the fact of more than one fine trout 

 having been trapped by this device in my own presence. 



AvBNA SATivA. Commou Cultivated Oat. Plate CX. 



Panicle erect, spreading equally. Spikelets drooping, two-flowered. 

 Flowers shorter than the glumes, not hairy at the base. Awn seldom 

 much longer than the flower, sometimes absent. 



Avena sativa, Linnwus. Willdenow. Grenerally adopted. 



The common oat, cultivated over the northern parts of the eastern 

 hemisphere, by both Mongul and Caucasian races, from a period too 

 remote to admit of its history being now traced, is nowhere met with 

 in the wild state ; hence, like other species of corn similarly circum- 

 stanced though not indigenous, it has a claim to be noticed as belongmg 



