624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



trials of human beings on charges of sorcery. Simple country people 

 finding the regular process very tedious and expensive, purchased 

 charms and exorcisms from empirical, unlicensed exorcists at a much 

 cheaper rate, but, if any of the parties concerned in this contraband 

 traffic were discovered, death by stake and fagot was their inevitable 

 fate. Still there was one animal, the serpent, which, as it had been 

 cursed at the earliest period of the world's history, might be exorcised 

 and charmed (so that it could not leave the spot where it was first 

 seen) by any one, lay or cleric, without the slightest imputation of 

 sorcery. The formula ran thus : -" By him who created thee, I adjure 

 thee that thou remain in the spot where thou art, whether it be thy 

 will to do so, or otherwise ; and I curse thee with the curse with which 

 the Lord hath cursed thee." 



In the seventeenth century the cases of law proceedings against 

 animals became rare, for the Church at this period had almost renounced 

 these absurd practices. Thus, for example, in the " Ritual of Evreux," 

 of 1G06, Cardinal Duperron declares that no one should exorcise animals 

 nor use prayers and formulas without his express permission. But the 

 delusion was too widespread to be restrained. In Spain and Italy exor- 

 cists abounded, as in France. Azpilcenta, of Navarre, a distinguished 

 Spanish canonist, asserts that rats when exorcised were ordered to 

 depart for foreign countries, and would march in large bodies to the 

 seacoast, and thence set off swimming in search of desert islands. 

 Father Manoel Bernardes, in his " Nova Floresta " (published at Lisbon, 

 1706-1708), gives a long account of the trial of ants in Brazil in the 

 commencement of the eighteenth century. The particulars are too 

 long to be given in detail, but it appears that the monks of St. Anthony 

 complained of the sacrilegious behavior of certain ants that ate their 

 grain, and otherwise misconducted themselves, devouring the cloths of 

 the altar, and bringing into the church pieces of shrouds from the graves 

 beneath the church. The sentence was that the friars should provide 

 a suitable place for the ants to remove to, which seems to have satis- 

 fied the defendants it nigrum campis agmen ; millions of ants im- 

 mediately came out, forming themselves in long, dense columns, and 

 proceeded direct to the field assigned to them. 



In America birds of prey and insects were excommunicated. The 

 Baron de la Houtan, who toward the end of the seventeenth century 

 passed several years in Canada, relates that "the number of turtle-doves 

 was so great in that country that the bishop was obliged to excom- 

 municate them several times on account of the damages done by them." 

 A similar infliction was pronounced in Peru against the termites, a 

 species of Avhite ant, that had got into a library and devoured a great 

 number of books. In the " Voyages of La Perouse," it is stated that 

 millions of cockroaches got into the bread-rooni, and recourse was had 

 to exorcisms more than once. 



The ceremonies attending the exorcism of animals were sometimes 



