Query, Would it not be well, if some of your more learned correspondents would communicate to students, through the medium of "NOTES AND QUERIES," a list of such books as are genuine but not authentic; and authentic but not genuine, or altogether spurious? or would point out the sources from which such information can be obtained? P.H.F. _The Hippopotamus._--Your correspondent L. (Vol. ii., p. 35.) says, "None of the Greek writers appear to have seen a live hippopotamus:" and again, "The hippopotamus, being an inhabitant of the Upper Nile, was imperfectly known to the ancients." Herodotus says (ii. 71.) that this animal was held sacred by the Nomos of Papremis, but not by the other Egyptians. The city of Papremis is fixed by Bähr in the west of the Delta (ad ii. 63.); and Mannert conjectured it to be the same as the later Xoïs, lying between the Sebennytic and Canopic branches, but nearer to the former. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says, several representations of the hippopotamus were found at Thebes, one of which he gives (_Egyptians_, vol. iii. pl. xv.). Herodotus' way of speaking would seem to show that he was describing from his own observation: he used Hecatæus, no doubt, but did not blindly copy him. Hence, I think, we may infer that Herodotus himself saw the hippopotamus, and that this animal was found, in his day, even as far north as the Delta: and also, that the species is gradually dying out, as the aurochs is nearly gone, and the dodo quite. The crocodile is no longer found in the Delta. E.S. JACKSON _America._--The probability of a short western passage to India is mentioned in _Aristotle de Coelo_, ii., near the end. F.Q. _Pascal's Lettres Provinciales._--I take the liberty of forwarding to you the following "Note," suggested by two curious blunders which fell under my notice some time ago. In Mr. Stamp's reprint of the Rev. C. Elliott's _Delineation of Romanism_ (London, 8vo. 1844), I find (p. 471., in note) a long paragraph on Pascal's _Lettres Provinciales_:-- "This exquisite production," says the English editor, "_is accompanied, in some editions of it, with the learned and judicious observations of Nicole_, who, under the fictitious name of Guillaume Wendrock, has fully demonstrated the truths of those facts which Pascal had advanced without quoting his authorities; and has placed, in a full and striking light, several interesting circumstances which that great man had treated with perhaps too much brevity. _These letters ... were translated into Latin by Ruchelius_."