144 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 



minute bunches of grapes with their silken threads, uniting 

 them in packets. The caterpillars having thus made a safe 

 home, eat away in the inside, and they do so much harm in 

 this manner that sometimes a whole vineyard is ruined in a 

 few weeks. Towards the end of the last century much 

 attention was paid by naturalists, in order to find a remedy, 

 and to discover how these insects could be destroyed, but 

 they came to no satisfactory conclusion. In 1835 and 1840 

 these caterpillars did so much harm in several departments that 

 the French Government ordered Victor Audouin to examine 

 into the question, and he wrote a very fine work upon the 

 insects which are injurious to the vine. He showed that it was 

 easy to destroy the eggs by removing the leaves, but he 

 suggested that inasmuch as the young caterpillars always took 

 refuge in the props and the upright shoots of the vine before 

 they did any mischief, that these should all be burnt, or so 

 heated that the caterpillars would be destroyed. The vines shot 

 up in the next year, and the props contained no caterpillars, and 

 from that time the great pest has hardly ever appeared. 



Many years ago one of the moths which are so injurious 

 to the vine became common in Savoy, and after a year or two 

 the caterpillars began to do great mischief The unfortunate 

 farmers applied to the Archbishop, and requested him to curse 

 the caterpillars, as they were doing a great deal of injury. The 

 Archbishop, being a merciful man, did not think the insects 

 were to blame, because they were only indulging in those habits 

 which were necessary for their existence, and he also con- 

 sidered that they were sent as a punishment to the vineyard 

 men, who had not paid up all their tithes. Consequently, he 

 ordered the Bishop to open a court, where the farmers and 

 the insects were to appear by counsel. A long trial took place, 

 and a commission was ordered to inquire into the truth of the 

 allegations of the farmers, but of course, whilst this was being 

 done the caterpillars had metamorphosed, and the mischief was 

 completed. Many years afterwards the moths and caterpillars 

 re-appeared, and then the farmers proposed to set apart a 

 particular plot of ground for the insects, which were to be 

 under the charge of the Church, and petitioned that if they 



