CHAPTER VIII 



THE PINE PROCESSIONARY 



Drover Dingdong's Sheep followed the Ram which 

 Panurge had maliciously thrown overboard and leapt 

 nimbly into the sea, one after the other, " for you know," 

 says Rabelais, " it is the nature of the sheep always to 

 follow the first, wheresoever it goes." 



The Pine Caterpillar is even more sheeplike, not from 

 foolishness, but from necessity: where the first goes all 

 the others go, in a regular string, with not an empty space 

 between them. 



They proceed in single file, in a continuous row, each 

 touching with its head the rear of the one in front of 

 it. The complex twists and turns described in his 

 vagaries by the caterpillar leading the van are scrupu- 

 lously described by all the others. No Greek theoria 

 winding its way to the Eleusinian festivals was ever more 

 orderly. Hence the name of Processionary given to the 

 gnawer of the pine. 



His character is complete when we add that he is a 

 rope-dancer all his life long: he walks only on the tight- 

 rope, a silken rail placed in position as he advances. 

 The caterpillar who chances to be at the head of the pro- 

 cession dribbles his thread without ceasing and fixes it on 

 the path which his fickle preferences cause him to take. 

 The thread is so tiny that the eye, though armed with a 

 magnifying-glass, suspects it rather than sees it. 



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