(M208) Some of the Greek gods were worshipped under titles derived from the vermin or other pests which they were supposed to avert or exterminate. Thus we hear of Mouse Apollo,(833) Locust Apollo,(834) and Mildew Apollo;(835) of Locust Hercules and Worm-killing Hercules;(836) of Foxy Dionysus;(837) and of Zeus the Fly-catcher or Averter of Flies.(838) If we could trace all these and similar worships to their origin, we should probably find that they were at first addressed, not to the high gods as the protectors of mankind, but to the baleful things themselves, the mice, locusts, mildew, and so forth, with the intention of flattering and soothing them, of disarming their malignity, and of persuading them to spare their worshippers. We know that the Romans worshipped the mildew, the farmer’s plague, under its own proper name.(839) The ravages committed by mice among the crops both in ancient and modern times are notorious,(840) and according to a tradition which may be substantially correct the worship of the Mouse (Smintheus) Apollo was instituted to avert them.(841) The image of a mouse which stood beside Apollo’s tripod in the god’s temple in the Troad,(842) may be compared with the golden mice which the Philistines made for the purpose of ridding themselves of the vermin; and the tame mice kept in his sanctuary, together with the white mice which lived under the altar,(843) would on this hypothesis be parallel to the white mice which the Bohemian peasant still cherishes as the best way of keeping down the numbers of their grey-coated brethren.(844) An Oriental counterpart of the Mouse Apollo is the ancient pillar or rude idol which the Chams of Indo-China call _yang-tikuh_ or “god rat,” and to which they offer sacrifices whenever rats infest their fields in excessive numbers.(845)