same body to take like summary measures in order to get rid of a pest of rodents. In 1729, 1730 and 1749 the municipal council of Lucerne ordered processions to be made on St. Magnus’ Day from the Church of St. Francis to Peter’s Chapel for the purpose of expelling weevils. This custom was observed annually from 1749 to 1798. The pompous ceremony has been superseded in Protestant countries by an officially appointed day of fasting and prayer. In his “First Counsel” Chassenée not only treats of methods of procedure, and gives forms of plaints to be drawn up and tendered to the tribunal by the injured party, as well as useful hints to the pettifogger in the exercise of his tortuous and tricky profession, but he also discusses many legal principles touching the jurisdiction of courts, the functions of judges, and other characteristic questions of civil, criminal, and canonical law. Animals, he says, should be tried by ecclesiastical tribunals, except in cases where the penalty involves the shedding of blood. An ecclesiastical judge is not competent _in causa sanguinis_, and can impose only canonical punishments, although he may have jurisdiction in temporal matters and punish crimes not involving a capital sentence. [_Nam judex ecclesiasticus in causa sanguinis non est competens judex, licet habeat jurisdictionem in temporalibus et possit crimina poenam sanguinis non existentia_ (_exigentia_ is obviously the correct reading) _castigare_. Cons. prim. IV. § 5.] For this reason the Church never condemned heretics to death, but, having decided that they should die, gave them over to the secular power for formal condemnation, usually under the hollow and hypocritical pretence of recommending them to mercy. In the prosecution of animals the summons was commonly published from the parish pulpit and the whole judicial process bore a distinctively ecclesiastical character. In most cases the presiding judge or official was the vicar of the parish acting as the deputy of the bishop of the diocese. Occasionally the curate officiated in this capacity. Sometimes the trial was conducted before a civil magistrate under the authority of the Church, or the matter was submitted to the adjudication of a conjurer, who, however, appointed two proctors to plead respectively for the plaintiff and the defendant and who rendered his verdict in due legal form. Indeed, the word “conjurer” seems to have been used as a popular designation of the person, whether priest or layman, who exercised judicatory functions in such trials, probably because, as a rule, the sentence could be executed only by conjuration or the invocation of supernatural aid.