(5 p. 0. Bodding — Taboo amongst the Santals. [Jan. 



prevent any kind of familiarity between them, have as tlieir ultimate 

 cause a wish to protect the weaker relation and his property from being 

 encroached on, or to protect the rights of the first buyer uninfringed. 



As far as regards husband and wife, the custom of tabooing each 

 other's names seems to be of another nature than with the relations 

 just mentioned. The Santals feel the difference themselves and de- 

 scribe it negatively by saying, that if husband and wife break the 

 custom it is only dishonoring each other, but if the other relatives break 

 it, it is sin. The custom is most likely meant for honoring, but it may 

 be, that in this instance it has originally been borrowed from the Hindoo 

 custom, that a wife is prohibited from naming the name of her husband, 

 the peculiar social and family position of a Santal wife having caused 

 the custom to be made obligatory for the husband also. 



Besides the tabooing of names mentioned, the Santals in some cases 

 taboo the animals, plants, things, etc., i.e., the totems which have given 

 names to their septs and subsepts ; they are prohibited from killings 

 eating, carrying, cutting or in some way or other using them. 



Further, almost all sacrifices are taboo for the women who are in 

 most cases forbidden even to eat the flesh of the sacrificed animals. 

 Men of other totems are also prohibited from eating the flesh of sac- 

 rifices offered to the different totemistic gods or spirits. 



The sacred trees of the holy grove are taboo for all women, and 

 women belonging to other households are prohibited from entering the 

 hhitar, a small closet found inside every Santal dwelling house, where 

 offerings are made to the ancestors. 



The paper will be published in full, in Journal, Part III. 



7. Note on the Occurrence in India of the Dwarf Goose fAnser 

 erythropus) with Exhibition of living Specimen. — By F. Finn, B.A., F.Z.S., 

 Deputy Superintendent of the Indian Museum, 



The Goose which I have the honour of exhibiting to the Society to- 

 night is a very rare visitor to India, no instance of its occurrence within 

 our limits having apparently been recorded since the publication of Mr. 

 Hume's " Game Birds and Wildfowl " nearly twenty years ago ; and even 

 in that work less than a dozen specimens are mentioned as having been 

 obtained up to date. 



I was therefore very pleased at being able to secure, on New Year's 

 Day, the bird I now exhibit, together with two others, which are at 

 present in the Duck House at the Alipore Zoological Gardens. The 

 specimens were obtained from a bird-dealer in the Provision Bazzar 

 who constantly imports birds from up country ; I have since heard that 

 these came from somewhere in the direction of Rawal Pindi. The 



