THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 215 



their descendants were ordered to quit forever the Diocese of Lausanne. 



We presume that in this case some of the cliafers were l)rought into 

 Court to hear the sentence. That step was taken some years previously 

 in the same town, when judgment was given on non-appearance against 

 some leeches, and a number of them were brought into court to hear the 

 sentence that they were to leave the district in three days. By the way, 

 the leeches proved contumaceous and did not leave, whereupon they 

 were exorcised ; that process had the effect of a capital punishment, for 

 they at once began to die off, and so went on day by day until they were 

 utterly exterminated. 



Weevils were prosecuted at Beaume in 1488, at Macon in 1 501, at 

 Cotentin in 1504, and at Troyes in 1576; these poor coleopterous long- 

 noses seem to have been especially obnoxious to the Church. Caterpillars 

 were tried at Cotentin in 1585, and at Auvergne in 1690. Locusts were 

 frequently sat upon by the Judges. And as late as the eighteenth century 

 ants were proceeded against in Brazil. These little black busvbodies had 

 so undermined a monastery of St. Anthony that it was in danger of falling 

 about the ears of the monks ,; they also worked so indefatigably by night 

 and by day at stealing the grain of the friars, that these holy men were like 

 to starve. The lawyer for the insects on this occasion was no dweller in 

 the Spirit-world, but a shrewd and learned servant of Justice. He argued 

 that as his clients had received from the Creator the gift of life they had 

 a right to preserve it as best they could ; that they set an example to men 

 in the practice of many virtues ; prudence, in storing food for future use ; 

 diligence, in gathering corn (and here he quoted St. Jerome) ; charity, in 

 aiding one another with heavy burdens ; and religion and piety, in burying 

 their dead. ^Vhile admitting that the friars were more noble and more 

 worthy, this bold advocate alleged that before God they were only like 

 ants ; that the advantage of reason scarcely compensated for their sin in 

 breaking the laws of nature and of reason ; that their crime in offending 

 against God was greater than the ants' in taking their flour. That the 

 ants had prior possession, and that if expelled they would appeal to the 

 tribunal of their Divine Creator, who made the smallest as well as the 

 greatest and had assigned to every one his guardian angel ; and in con- 

 clusion, he asserted that the defendants would continue their mode of 

 being, as the earth and all it contained belonged to God, and not to the 

 monks. After a careful perusal of the evidence and consideration of the 

 arguments, the Judge ordered the monks to select a tield in the neighbor- 



