Queer Culprits
that the latter should change their abode immediately under pain of major excommunication. By such an arrangement both parties would be content and be reconciled; for the Ants must consider that the Monks had come into the land to sow there the seed of the Gospel, and that they themselves could easily obtain a livelihood elsewhere, and at less cost. This sentence having been given, one of the friars was appointed to convey it to the insects, which he did, reading it aloud at the openings of their burrows.
"Wondrous event! 'It nigrum campis agmen,' one saw dense columns of the little creatures, in all haste, leaving their ant-hills, and betaking themselves direct to their appointed residence."
Manoel Bernardes adds, that this sentence was pronounced on the 17th of January 1713, and that he saw and examined the papers referring to this transaction, in the monastery of Saint Anthony, where they were deposited.
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