ON INTRODUCED ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 53 



From Dioscorides' account of the " melanthion," the makoniahn 

 apton of Alcman and Athenseus iii. 75, would seem to be, bread 

 sprinkled with the black seeds of NigelJa saliva; according to the 

 custom in Egypt at the present day. This custom is also noticed by 

 Pliny and Belon. 



According to Theophrastus and Greek records consulted by Pliny. 

 The sia<i>ion was discovered seven years before the founding of Cyrene 

 (or about B. C. 638). — The concrete juice of this plant was much used 

 in Ancient Greek cookery ; but at the present day, is nearly unknown, 

 The plant, however (agreeing with the figures on ancient coins), has 

 been re-discovered in the same district of North Africa by P. della 

 Cella; and has received the name of Thapsla silphium. 



The name of Neku or Nechoh, the fifth king of the Twenty-Sixth 

 Egyptian Dynasty, has been found at Rosetta; and on various stelse; 

 together with the date of the fourth year of his reign. Neku captured 

 Jerusalem (2 Kings xxiii., 2 Chronicles xxxv., and Herodotus ii. 159) 

 in the course of his great military expedition ; which is described in 

 burning words in Jeremiah xlvi. The reign of Neku is also remarkable 

 for the first Circumnavigation of Africa (see Herodotus iv. 40). 



The " bryt" of Jeremiah ii. 22, and Malachi iii. 2, may be compared 

 with "ryteh," the current Egyptian name of the fruit of Sapindus 

 laurifolius. — According to Forskal and Delile, this imported fruit is 

 employed in washing the finer kinds of woollens : and according to 

 Graham, the tree grows in Hindostan. 



The ©A*n of Sappho, Aristophanes (Vesp. 1404), and Theocritus ii. 

 88, is referred by the Scholiast of Theocritus to the " chrysoxylon " of 

 the Modern Greeks, Rhus cotinus. — This, shrub, according to Sibthorp 

 and others, is indigenous on the mountains of Greece ; and as the 

 wood is still used for dyeing at Athens, it cannot be altogether unknown 

 in Egypt. 



The annhto of Sappho, Alcseus, Aristophanes, Theophrastus, Dios- 

 corides, and Athenaeus xv. 16, is referred by Sibthorp and others to 

 the dill (Anethum graveolens). — Forskal, Delile, and Clot-Bey, speak 

 of the cultivation of the A. graveolens in Egypt. 



The name of Psamtik II., the sixth king of the Twenty-Sixth 

 Egyptian Dynasty, has been found on stones, once part of a propylon 

 at Memphis ; on a sarcophagus, at the bottom of the remarkably in- 

 sulated pit discovered by Vyse at Gizeh; in tombs at Sakhara ; on 

 stones employed in reparations at Thebes ; on the rocks near Philse ; 



