(M207) Another mode of getting rid of vermin and other noxious creatures without hurting their feelings or shewing them disrespect is to make images of them. Apollonius of Tyana is said to have cleared Antioch of scorpions by making a bronze image of a scorpion and burying it under a small pillar in the middle of the city.(825) Further, it is reported that he freed Constantinople from flies by means of a bronze fly, and from gnats by means of a bronze gnat.(826) In the Middle Ages Virgil passed for an enchanter and is said to have rid Naples of flies and grasshoppers by bronze or copper images of these insects; and when the waters of the city were infested by leeches, he made a golden leech, which put a stop to the plague.(827) It is reported that a mosque at Fez used to be protected against scorpions by an image of a bird holding a scorpion in its beak.(828) An Arab writer tells of a golden locust which guarded a certain town from a plague of locusts; and he also mentions two brazen oxen which checked a murrain among cattle.(829) Gregory of Tours tells us that the city of Paris used to be free of dormice and serpents, but that in his lifetime, while they were cleaning a sewer, they found a bronze serpent and a bronze dormouse and removed them. “Since then,” adds the good bishop, “dormice and serpents without number have been seen in Paris.”(830) When their land was overrun with mice, the Philistines made golden images of the vermin and sent them out of the country in a new cart drawn by two cows, hoping that the real mice would simultaneously depart.(831) So when a swarm of serpents afflicted the Israelites in the desert, they made a serpent of brass and set it on a pole as a mode of staying the plague.(832) § 2. Mouse Apollo and Wolf Apollo.