or
a _sea-onion_, the fruit above referred to, as the food of the
Lotophagi, must have been of infinitely larger size and in every way
different from the lotus of the Nile, described in the 2nd book, as well
as from the lotus in the East. Lindley records the conjecture that the
article referred to by Herodotus was the _nabk_, the berry of the
lote-bush (_Zizyphus lotus_), which the Arabs of Barbary still eat.
(_Vegetable Kingdom_, p. 582.)]

One species of the water lily, the _Nymphaea rubra_, with small red
flowers, and of great beauty, is common in the ponds near Jaffna and in
the Wanny; and I found in the fosse, near the fort of Moeletivoe, the
beautiful blue lotus, _N. stellata_, with lilac petals, approaching to
purple in the centre, which had not previously been supposed to be a
native of the island.

Another very interesting aquatic plant, which was discovered by Dr.
Gardner in the tanks north of Trincomalie, is the _Desmanthus natans_,
with highly sensitive leaves floating on the surface of the water. It is
borne aloft by masses of a spongy cellular substance, which occur at
intervals along its stem and branches, but the roots never touch the
bottom, absorbing nourishment whilst floating at liberty, and only found
in contact with the ground after the subsidence of water in the
tanks.[1]

[Footnote 1: A species of _Utricularia_, with yellow flowers (U.
stellaris), is a common water-plant in the still lakes near the fort of
Colombo, where an opportunity is afforded of observing the extraordinary
provision of nature for its reproduction. There are small appendages
attached to the roots, which become distended with air, and thus carry
the plant aloft to the surface, during the cool season. Here it floats
till the operation of flowering is over, when the vesicles burst, and by
its own weight it returns to the bottom of the lake to ripen its seeds
and deposit them in the soil; after which the air vessels again fill,
and again it re-ascends to undergo the same process of fecundation.]

PART II.

ZOOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

MAMMALIA.

With the exception of the Mammalia and the Birds, the fauna of Ceylon
has, up to the present, failed to receive that systematic attention to
which its richness and variety so amply entitle it. The Singhalese
themselves, habitually indolent and singularly unobservant of nature in
her operations, are at the same time restrained from the study of
natural history by tenets