The Processionary : the Nest 



ferently, but never on the other Conifers. 

 Yet one would think that any resin-scented 

 leaf ought to suit. So says chemical analysis. 



We must mistrust the chemist's retort when 

 it pokes its nose into the kitchen. It may suc- 

 ceed in making butter out of tallow-candles 

 and brandy out of potatoes ; but, when it tells 

 us that the products are identical, we shall do 

 well to refuse these abominations. Science, 

 astonishingly rich as it is in poison, will never 

 provide us with anything fit to eat, because, 

 though the raw substance falls to a large ex- 

 tent within its domain, that same substance 

 escapes its methods the moment that it is 

 wanted organized, divided and subdivided in- 

 definitely by the process of life, as needed 

 by the stomach, whose requirements are not 

 to be met by measured doses of our reagents. 

 The raw material of cell and fibre may per- 

 haps be artificially obtained, some day; cell 

 and fibre themselves, never. There's the rub 

 with your chemical feeding. 



The caterpillars loudly proclaim the insur- 

 mountable difficulty of the problem. Relying 

 on my chemical data, I offer them the dif- 

 ferent substitutes for the pine growing in my 

 enclosure : the spruce, the yew, the thuja, the 



37 



