In a Latin protocol of legal proceedings in Crollolanza’s _Storia del Contado di Chiavenna_ it is recorded that on June 26, 1659, Capt. J. B. Pestalozzi came, in behalf of the communes of Chiavenna, Mese, Gordona, Prada and Samolico, before the commissioner Hartmann Planta and brought complaint against certain caterpillars on account of the devastations committed by them, demanding that these hurtful creatures should be summoned by the proper sheriff to appear in court on June 28 at a specified hour in order to have a curator and defender appointed, who should answer for them to the plaintiffs. A second document, dated June 28, 1659, and signed by the notary Battista Visconti, certifies that the said summons had been duly issued and five copies of the same been posted each on a tree in the five forests in the territory of the aforesaid five communes. A third document of the same date required the advocate of the accused, Cesare de Peverello, to appear before the court on the following Tuesday, July 1, in behalf of his recusant clients, who were charged with trespassing upon the fields, gardens and orchards and doing great damage therein, instead of remaining in their habitat, the forest. The prosecutors required that they should seek their food in wild and wooded places and cease from ravaging cultivated grounds. A fourth document contains an account of the trial; the pleadings of the respective parties, so far as they are preserved, do not differ essentially from those already quoted. In the fifth and final document the court recognizes the right of the caterpillars to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, provided the exercise of this right “does not destroy or impair the happiness of man, to whom all lower animals are subject.” Accordingly a definite place of abode is to be assigned to them and various places are proposed. The protocol is incomplete, so that we are left in ignorance of the ultimate decision. The whole is written in execrable Latin quite worthy of the subject.