More than half-a-century later the Franciscan friars of the cloister of St. Anthony in the province of Piedade no Maranhão, Brazil, were greatly annoyed by termites, which devoured their food, destroyed their furniture, and even threatened to undermine the walls of the monastery. Application was made to the bishop for an act of interdiction and excommunication, and the accused were summoned to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal to give account of their conduct. The lawyer appointed to defend them urged the usual plea about their being God’s creatures and therefore entitled to sustenance, and made a good point in the form of an _argumentum ad monachum_ by praising the industry of his clients, the white ants, and declaring them to be in this respect far superior to their prosecutors, the Gray Friars. He also maintained that the termites were not guilty of criminal aggression, but were justified in appropriating the fruits of the fields by the right derived from priority of possession, inasmuch as they had occupied the land long before the monks came and encroached upon their domain. The trial lasted for some time and called forth remarkable displays of legal learning and forensic eloquence, with numerous citations of sacred and profane authorities on both sides, and ended in a compromise, by the terms of which the plaintiffs were obliged to provide a suitable reservation for the defendants, who were commanded to go thither and to remain henceforth within the prescribed limits. In the chronicles of the cloister it is recorded, under date of Jan. 1713, that no sooner was the order of the prelatic judge promulgated by being read officially before the hills of the termites than they all came out and marched in columns to the place assigned. The monkish annalist regards this prompt obedience as conclusive proof that the Almighty endorsed the decision of the court. [Cited by Emile Angel on the authority of Manoel Bernardes’ _Nova Floresta, ou Sylva de varios apophthegmas e ditos sentencios espirituaes e moraes_, etc. Vol. V., Lisboá, 1747.] About the middle of the sixteenth century the inhabitants of several villages in Aargau were greatly annoyed by swarms of gadflies and petitioned the Bishop of Constance for relief. In the episcopal rescript, written and signed by the vidame Georg Winterstetter, the people are enjoined to abstain from dancing on Sundays and feast days, from all forms of libidinousness, gambling with cards or dice and other frivolities. These injunctions are followed by prayer and the usual formulas of conjuration and exorcism. The original document was written in Latin and preserved in the archives of Baden in Switzerland, but is now lost. In 1566 the Landamman of Unterwalden, Johannes Wirz, took a German translation of it home with him to be used in case of need against the “vergifteten Würmer,” and deposited it in the archives of Obwalden, where it still remains. It was published in 1898 by Dr. Merz.