1 44 
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 
su ggested 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 
