290 Mr. J. Hogg on the ByUus-Rmh. 



penetrating from one cell to another. As to any connexion 

 between this Amoeba and that which emerges from an apparent 

 spore- capsule, and as to the nature and object of the ulterior 

 conjugation and metamorphosis of the globules, I will not now 

 hazard an hypothesis. The well-known large eggs of the Roti- 

 fera and Crustacea cannot be enclosed within these develop- 

 mental structures. Lastly, I have made no researches respecting 

 the construction of the lid-like covers of the apertures, which 

 would still be particularly deserving of notice even if the capsule 

 protruded from the joint-cell were found to be nothing more 

 than a diseased product induced by the operation of the parasitic 

 animal germ. 



These researches were made in June and in the beginning of 

 July j and I have been unable to verify them at a later period of 

 the year. 



[To be continued.] 



XXVIII. — Notes on the Bt/blus-Rush and the Byblus-Bok, 

 By John Hogg, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. &c. 



In a paper " On Vessels made of the Papyrus," which I com- 

 municated to the ' Magazine of Natural History' in 1829 (vol. ii. 

 p. 324, &c.), I gave a sketch (fig. 88) of an ancient vessel used 

 on the Nile in Egypt, taken from the famous Mosaic pavement 

 discovered at Palestrina (Prseneste), and which is constructed 

 with a high and long prow. A kind of boat used on the large 

 Lake Nyanza, in Equatorial Africa, is shown in Capt. Speke's 

 ' Journal,' P- 391, as having a. prow somewhat similar in length,, 

 and which he describes as "standing out like the neck of a 

 syphon or swan.'' 



This coincidence, then, is not unworthy of notice, as showing 

 that, in all probability, the Nyanza boat retains the early form 

 of that very ancient Nile vessel. Capt. Speke does not say of 

 what materials the boat is composed, and whether the Byblus- 

 rush, now abundant in that lake-district of Africa, is ever used 

 in "filling up the joints on the inside," or for forming the 

 ordinary " sails," as it was in the time of Herodotus (Euterpe, 

 cap. 96). 



The Byblus-rush (/3u/3Xo9 of Herodotus, or the Papyrus anti- 

 quorum of Sprengel) was once so common on the banks of the 

 Nile that Ovid assigned the epithet Papyrifer to that holy river. 

 I^or was the plant itself esteemed less holy, inasmuch as it waa 

 used by the Egyptian priests for the ornamentation of their 

 statues and temples, and for a frequent model of columns, and 

 as a representative in the ancient hieroglyphics, But of late 



