1863. | Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 299 
be made to cqmplete it with the aid of brick and mortar coloured 
black, if only for the purpose of having the group photographed. 
““8.—Perhaps Lieut. Macsween, of the Engineers, would be able to 
set up one of these statues at a small expense, say of Rs. 50, in about 
one fortnight. 
(Sd.) “A. CunnincHam, Major General, 
“ Archeological Surveyor to the Govt. of India. 
3. From Baboo Gopeenath Sen; Abstract of the Meteorological 
Observations taken at the Surveyor General’s Office, Calcutta, in 
February last. 
4. From Mr. W. Theobald, Jr., the following note on the pheno- 
menon known as Ignis-fatuus, or Will-o’-the wisp :— 
“My pear ArKinson,—I wish through the pages of the Society’s 
Journal to direct the attention of observers interested in the enquiry, 
to that curious, and, I believe, hitherto unsatisfactorily explained 
? 
phenomenon “ Ignis-fatuus” or ‘ Will-o’-the-wisp,” and to record a 
curious belief current in Burmah respecting it:—I am aware that a 
certain class of reasoners have ventured to throw doubts on the very 
existence of the phenomenon in question and have sarcastically 
suggested that three conditions are requisite to insure its reported 
development—that the ground must be ‘boggy,’ the atmosphere 
‘fogey’ and the philosophic observer decidedly ‘ groggy,’ at the time ; 
but having been myself a frequent eye-witness where only the two 
first conditions were more or less realised, I must dissent from this 
somewhat less charitable than ingenious theory. The European 
superstition of the ‘ Elfish’ origin of Ignis-fatuus is well known, 
and in Hindustan the belief is prevalent that the light is borne 
by a ghost. The Burmese belief is very curious and recalls 
some medieval Huropean superstitions of like character, and if it 
proves nothing more, the existence in three distinct regions of a 
different belief, as explanatory of a certain phenomenon, goes far to 
prove the reality and non-imaginary character of the appearance in 
question. 
“In Burmah it is believed that there is a class of wizards whose 
heads become dissociated from their bodies during the night and 
wander about the jungle feeding on carrion, the bodies remaining 
at home, and the Ignis-fatuus is supposed to proceed from the mouth 
of one of the wandering heads. Ifa head is secured whilst abroad it 
