An old Swiss chronicler named Schilling gives a full account of the prosecution and anathematization of a species of vermin called inger, which seems to have been a coleopterous insect of the genus Brychus and very destructive to the crops. The case occurred in 1478 and the trial was conducted before the Bishop of Lausanne by the authority and under the jurisdiction of Berne. The first document recorded is a long and earnest declaration and admonition delivered from the pulpit by a Bernese parish-priest, Bernhard Schmid, who begins by stating that his “dearly beloved” are doubtless aware of the serious injury done by the inger and of the suffering which they have caused. The Leutpriester, as he is termed, gives a brief history of the matter and of the measures taken to procure relief. The mayor and common council of Berne were besought in their wisdom to devise some means of staying the plague, and after much earnest deliberation they held counsel with the Bishop of Lausanne, who “with fatherly feeling took to heart so great affliction and harm” and by an episcopal mandate enjoined the inger from committing further depredations. After exhorting the people to entreat God by “a common prayer from house to house” to remove the scourge, he proceeds to warn and threaten the vermin in the following manner: “Thou irrational and imperfect creature, the inger, called imperfect because there was none of thy species in Noah’s ark at the time of the great bane and ruin of the deluge, thou art now come in numerous bands and hast done immense damage in the ground and above the ground to the perceptible diminution of food for men and animals; and to the end that such things may cease, my gracious Lord and Bishop of Lausanne has commanded me in his name to admonish you to withdraw and to abstain; therefore by his command and in his name and also by virtue of the high and holy trinity and through the merits of the Redeemer of mankind, our Saviour Jesus Christ, and in virtue of and obedience to the Holy Church, I do command and admonish you, each and all, to depart within the next six days from all places where you have secretly or openly done or might still do damage, also to depart from all fields, meadows, gardens, pastures, trees, herbs, and spots, where things nutritious to men and to beasts spring up and grow, and to betake yourselves to the spots and places, where you and your bands shall not be able to do any harm secretly or openly to the fruits and aliments nourishing to men and beasts. In case, however, you do not heed this admonition or obey this command, and think you have some reason for not complying with them, I admonish, notify and summon you in virtue of and obedience to the Holy Church to appear on the sixth day after this execution at precisely one o’clock after midday at Wifflisburg, there to justify yourselves or to answer for your conduct through your advocate before His Grace the Bishop of Lausanne or his vicar and deputy. Thereupon