126 E. P. Stebbing — Moth Duomitus leuconotus, Walker. [Nov. 



Latin, vagina ; Italian, guaina ; French, gaine. 



The same peculiarity occurs in Welsh, as in gweddw ; Latin, vidua ; 

 Sanskrit, vidhava ; a widow. 



In Eranian languages we find the same tendency in Baloci. Thus, 

 Avesta, rata ; Baloci, gwdt, wind : Avesta, vlsaiti- ; Baloci gist, twenty. 



(N.B. — Baloci also prefixes g to words beginning with vowels other 

 than u). 



The same prosthesis explains a form of the pronoun of the third 

 person occurring in the Braj Bhakha dialect of Western Hindi, which has 

 not hitherto been noted by grammarians. It is prevalent in the district of 

 Aligarh, and the east of the district of Agra, and isgu or gwa, he, that ; 

 oblique singular, gwdZ ; nominative plural, gwe ; obi. plur., guni or gunan. 

 Connected with it is gw% or ngwa, there. Examples of its use are, — 

 gunan je Icahi 

 by-them this was-said, i.e., they said so. 

 gunan kahft parihai. 

 to-them what will-fall, i.e., what do they care ? 



That the g in these words is similar to the prosthetic g of the 

 Romance languages, Welsh, and Baloci, is shown by the fact that it is 

 prefixed, in the same locality, to other words beginning with u. Thus, 

 gunnis, or unnls, nineteen ; guntls, for untis, twenty-nine ; guntalis, for 

 untalls, thirty-nine gumma's, for uncas, forty-nine ; gunhattar, for unhaU 

 tar, sixty-nine, and so on. 1 



To the south of the area in which Braj Bhakha is spoken lies the Dang, 

 or broken country of Kerauli and the east of the Jaipur State. Here we find 

 the prosthetic g weakened to h, the word for ' he ' being wha (i.e., hwa) or u. 



It will have been observed that the Aligarh gwa has no final h, as 

 there is in the Standard Western Hindi wah. If we assume that the 

 Darigi hwa is a weakened form of the Aligarh gwa, we find an explana- 

 tion for the final h of wah, which would thus be only an instance of meta- 

 thesis, wah and wha being the same word. The change was no doubt helped 

 by the fact that the Standard Western Hindi word for 'this,' viz., vah, 

 does terminate in an original h, being derived from the Apabhramcaeftw. 



5. On the Life-History and habits of the Moth Duomitus leuconotus, 

 Walker, in Calcutta. — By E. P. Stebbing. 



(Abstract.) 

 At the last meeting of this Society I read a paper on the life- 

 history of a species of Arbela destructive to Casuarina plantations in 



1 Mr. Dames informs me that he has heard Marvvari treasurers also using these 

 forms when counting. I have not found them in any specimens which I have 

 received from Rajputana. 



