Asiatic Society of Bengal. xi 
at Hussainabad (Hashnabg) in the Nawabganj Thana of 
Dacca District and from the occurrence of Bengali daknams 
or customary names of address and also of names of father’s 
bari (homestead) instead of surnames arrives at the conclusion 
~ that in the great majority of instances the Christians of Hash- 
nabad are not descended from Portuguese at all but are merely 
converts from Hinduism and Islam.” Dr. James Wise’s valu- 
able historical account of “ Portuguese in Eastern Bengal ”’ is 
printed as an appendix (II) to the paper with additional notes 
bringing the history up to date. Jn his paper on “ The Svastika 
and the Omkara’”’ Mr. Harit Krishna Deb endeavours to show 
that there are indications enabling us to identify the symbol 
(svastika) with the syllable om. In the paper entitled “ Pre- 
historic writing in India and Europe” Mr. Pafichanan Mitra 
traces the Indian Brahmi alphabet to Archaic (Proto-Egypto- 
Greco-Indic) writing. The most interesting anthropological 
paper of the year is Mr. Johan van Manen’s article entitled 
‘* Concerning a Bon Image ”’ which he recognises as the Bon-po 
deity Gsang-ba allied to Rta-mgrin and connected with the 
Garuda. 
Zoology. 
Kight papers on zoology have been published in the 
Journal and one in the the Memoirs, as well as a number of 
abstracts in the report of the Highth Indian Science Congress 
published in the Proceedings. 
The paper in the Memoirs deals with the Amphipod Crust- 
acea collected by Dr. N. Annandale in the Far East in 1915-1916 
mainly in the Muir Central College, Allahabad. 
Most, if not all, of the other papers in the Journal were 
originally read at a meeting of the Indian Science Congress and 
are of the nature of preliminary notes or short abstracts of 
longer memoirs published elsewhere. ; 
. Cedric Dover’s ‘* Resumé of Recent Progress in our 
Knowledge of the Indian Wasps and Bees” is a useful com- 
Dilation. 
Botany and Palaeontology. 
No papers dealing exclusively with botanical or palaeon- 
tologieal subjects have been published, but Dr. N. Annandale’s 
