horns tied on to their painted faces, or had decorated their heads with immense wigs of long black hair), one might easily have supposed these shrinking damsels to have been the pick of a Mission School specially selected for propriety to dance the South Indian kummi before, say, an itinerant Bishop of ascetic tendencies and æsthetic temperament. When their heaving, panting bodies showed that exhausted nature claimed them for her own, the man with the trumpet or the drum would rush up, and blow or beat it almost under their drooping heads, urging them with shouts and gesticulations to further energy, till at length the shades of night crept over the hills, and, with one accord, the dancing and the deafening music ceased, while the six girls stole quietly back and were soon lost in the crowd." Of superstitions among the Kondhs, the following are recorded by Mr. Jayaram Moodaliar:-- "When a Kondh starts out on a shooting expedition, if he first meets an adult female, married or unmarried, he will return home, and ask a child to tell the females to keep out of his way. He will then make a fresh start, and, if he meets a female, will wave his hand to her as a sign that she must keep clear of him. Before a party start out for shooting, they warn the females not to come in their way. The Kondh believes that, if he sees a female, he will not come across animals in the jungle to shoot. If a woman is in her menses, her husband, brothers, and sons living under the same roof, will not go out shooting for the same reason. A Kondh will not leave his village when a jathra (festival) is being celebrated, lest the god Pennu should visit his wrath on him. They will not cut trees, which yield products suitable for human consumption, such as the mango, jak, jambul (Eugenia Jambolana), or iluppai (Bassia) from which they distil a spirituous liquor. Even though these trees prevent the growth of a crop in the fields, they will not cut them down. If an owl hoots over the roof of a house, or on a tree close thereto, it is considered unlucky, as foreboding a death in the family at an early date. If an owl hoots close to a village, but outside it, the death of one of the villagers will follow. For this reason, the bird is pelted with stones, and driven off. They will not kill a crow, as this would be a sin amounting to the killing of a friend. According to their legend, soon after the creation of the world there was a family consisting of an aged man and woman, and four children, who died one after the other in quick succession. Their parents were too aged to take the necessary steps for their cremation, so they threw the bodies away on the ground, at some distance from their home. God appeared to them in their dreams one night, and promised that he would create the crow, so that it might devour the dead bodies.