356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



power, means adequate to frustrate his atmospheric mischiefs? To 

 these means belong the church-bells, provided they have been duly 

 consecrated and baptized. The aspiring steeples, around which cluster 

 the low dwellings of men, are to be likened, when the bells in them are 

 ringing, to the hen spreading its protecting wings over its chickens ; 

 for the tones of the consecrated metal repel the demons and avert 

 storm and lightning." 



During protracted drought it was the custom for the priests to 

 make intercession and inaugurate rain-processions, and it is narrated 

 that, in the year 1240, in Liittich a large rain-pi'ocession failed, three 

 times, to produce any effect, "because, in the supplication of all saints, 

 God's mother had been forgotten." A new procession was formed, 

 due respect was shown her Majesty, and the rain immediately came 

 down with such violence that the devout procession was dispersed. 



If the fields were visited by destructive insects, the Church had 

 remedies against them also. It commanded them in the name of God 

 to depart ; and, if they did not obey, regular processes were instituted 

 against them, which ended in their excommunication by the Church. 

 In the year 1474 the May-bug committed great depredations in the 

 neighborhood of Berne. The authorities of the city sought relief 

 against the scourge from the Bishop of Lausanne, who issued a letter 

 of excommunication, which was solemnly read by a priest in the 

 churchyard of Berne. The letter began thus : " Thou irrational, im- 

 perfect creature, thou May-bug, thou whose kind was never inclosed 

 in Noah's ark ; in the name of my gracious lord the Bishop of Lau- 

 sanne, by the power of the glorified Trinity through the merits of 

 Jesus Christ, and by the obedience you owe the Holy Church, I com- 

 mand you, May-bugs, all in common and each one in particular, to de- 

 part from all places where nourishment for man and cattle germinates 

 and grows." The letter ends with a summons to the insects to present 

 themselves at Wivelsburg on the sixth day thereafter, at one o'clock, 

 if they do not disappear before that time, and assume the responsibility 

 before the court of the gracious lord of Lausanne ! Arrangements were 

 made beforehand for a legal trial ; the accused, of course, was to have 

 a lawyer, and the Bishop devised the plan of summoning from hell the 

 spirit of an infamous one named Perrodet, who had died a few years 

 before. But, in spite of many summonses, neither Perrodet nor the 

 May-bugs deigned to appear, and finally the episcopal tribunal gave its 

 verdict of excommunication in the name of the Holy Trinity — " to you 

 accursed vermin, that are called May-bugs, and which can not even be 

 counted among the animals." The Government ordered the author- 

 ities of the afliicted district to report concerning the effects of the 

 measure ; but a chronicle of the time reports that " no effect was ob- 

 served, because of our sins." 



The most scrupulous attention to legal forms was given to the fre- 

 quently recurring processes against May-bugs, grasshoppers, worms, 



