290 Mr. J. Hogg on the Byblus-Rush. 
penetrating from one cell to another. As to any connexion 
between this Ameba 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 ; and I have been unable to verify them at a later period of 
the year. 
[To be continued. | 
XXVIII.—Notes on the Byblus-Rush and the Byblus- Bok. 
By Joun Hoge, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S. &e. 
In a paper “On Vessels made of the Papyrus,” which I com- 
municated to the ‘ Magazine of Natural History’ in 1829 (vol. 11. 
p. 824, &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 (Preneste), 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 Bydblus- 
rush, now abundant in that lake-district of Africa, is ever used 
in “filling up the jomts on the inside,” or for forming the 
ordinary “ sails,” as it was in the time of Herodotus (Euterpe, 
cap. 96). 
The Byblus-rush (BUBXos 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. 
Nor was the plant itself esteemed Jess holy, inasmuch as it was 
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 
on a ots Rael 
