TRANSACTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC SECTION. 127 



shi or Pguvus-wife, "a female spirit of the earth," is one 

 of these, and there are also the Nivashi or water sprites. 

 The urmen correspond to our fairies and the weshni-dye, 

 or wood mother, is a beneficent spirit of the forests. 



Our own Gypsies, while they have no such mythology, 

 preserve a good deal of small superstition from the belief 

 in mullos or ghosts, down to the notion that if any one 

 presents them with a knife they must immediately give 

 him something, if only a chip of wood, or it will cut 

 their friendship in two. They believe in fairies, and 

 said they had often seen their tracks, like chickens' feet, 

 in the soft mud round rivers in England, but some of 

 them thought there were no fairies in this country. 

 They also believe in cliomhanis, witches, and think peo- 

 ple with catalepsy or convulsions are bewitched. 



The great palladium of Ramnipen,duJcerin^ or fortune- 

 telling, they both believe and disbelieve. "It's sar 

 hukahen^'' (all lies) many a Gypsy witch- wife will tell 

 you, and it generally is so manifestly ; but they show a 

 disposition to believe that there are fortune tellers whose 

 soothsaying may not be all lies, and Leland has given 

 some remarkable examples of cases where they evidently 

 believed in their own predictions. 



Prof. H. E. Mills, Mr. A. E. Moseiey, Mr. Edmund 

 Piatt and Mr. Frederick P. Robertson were nominated 

 for membership. 



MARCH 13, 189-t.— SIXTH REGULAR MEETING. 



President Burgess presided, and about fifty members 

 and guests Avere present. Dr. Warring presented the fol- 

 lowing paper : 



65 



