504 BURMA, ir,S PEOPLE ASD PRODCCTIOSS. 



This is, I tliink, enough to show tlip indefensible treatment ^Ir. TTume has 

 received at the hands of his critic, but the matter is not without its humorous, as 

 well as its graver as])eet. Jlr. Hume is charged with "being unacquainted with 

 German," and with indulging himself in "a vulgar style of facetiousncss, which 

 is hardly suitable to scientific writing." In this there may be a residuum of truth, 

 but as the critic in a note gravely points out that ' Finsch ' is not equivalent to 

 ' Finch ' or ' Fringilla,' we have ample warrant for regarding him as belonging 

 to that unhappy class of persons with whom a surgical operation is necessary before 

 they are capable of recognizing a pun. 



LORICULUS VERXALIS (Page 410). 



" This (writes Dr. Mason) is one of the smallest birds of the parrot-tribe. Its 

 child-like notes are among the most familiar sounds in the interior, during the 

 declining day. Its Burman name signifies ' headlong,' from its habit of suspending 

 itself from the tree head-foremost like a bat." 



CELTS (Page 484). 



Dr. ilason thus refers to the occurrence of Celts in Burma, both of stone' and 

 copper ; but his views were somewhat confused on the subject, as is proved by the 

 following amusing diatribe against those who hold them to indicate a greater age for 

 the human species than that which is commonly assigned to it, by the so-called 

 Mosaic chronology. 



" According to our modern Moses, so soon as the monkeys had lost their tails, they 

 went to work chipping flints to kill each other for food. This is proved by a certain 

 savant of Portugal, who finds evidence that man once existed in that district, in so 

 rude a condition that he lived in caves, ate human flesh, and possessed chipped flints 

 for his sole weapons. This is called the ' old stone age,' the stones being in the 

 rough. As man advanced in civilization, he polished his stones, and thus introduced 

 ' the polished stone age.' Mr. Theobald, of the Geological Survey, in the Proceedings 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, for July, 1865, and again for July, 1869, first brought 

 to public notice the existence of stone implements in Burma." 



The following extracts are from the above-mentioned paper of 1869. " Excepting 

 a short notice in the Proceedings for July, 1865, p. 126, nothing that I am aware of 

 has been published respecting the stone implements found in Burma. They are, 

 however, curious, as differing materially in form and type, not only from anything 

 found in India, but from anything hitherto described from any part of Europe, though 

 any implement yet found in India has its precise analogue in Europe. 



"The material of which the Burmese implements are fashioned is either basalt, 

 or some schistose rock, quite unlike anything to be met with in the district where the 

 implements themselves occur; a fact pointing, in my opinion, to theii' having been 

 brought down from Upper Burma (where these implements are said to be common) by 

 the original settlers in the country. They are called ' mo-jio,' or thunder-bolt, by 

 the Burmese, and arc believed to accompany the lightning. The popular idea is that, 

 if a flash of lightning is seen to strike, and an earthen chattie, or other vessel, is in- 

 verted over the spot, in the course of a year or so, the mo-jio will be found in it, 

 having worked its way back again to the surface by its own recoil. 



" To the true ' mo-jio' the Burmese attach much value from the properties they 

 believe it to possess, but th(!y subject the articles to many tests, as, no doubt, from 

 experience, they have discovered that many of them arc in circulation, which, from 

 not possessing the characteristic powers of the mo-jio, must therefore be spurious. I 

 liave not, however, myself seen more tlian one stone mo-jio, whose autlienticity I 

 doubted, and tliat mainly from its being made of jade ; but though rare down here, 

 authentic jade implements may be found in Upper Burma. 



"One test of authenticity, the Burmese say, is tluit, if wrapped in a cloth and fired 

 at, no efl'cet will be produced on cither the cloth, or its contents, however near the gun 



