The Life of the Caterpillar 



missing many most interesting facts. This is 

 what actually happened, just as it did on a 

 later occasion in the case of another alien, the 

 Cicada. 1 Nevertheless, the information which 

 he was able to extract from a few nests sent 

 to him from the Landes is of the highest 

 value. 



Better served than he by circumstances, I 

 will take up afresh the story of the Proces- 

 sionary Caterpillar of the Pine. If the subject 

 does not come up to my hopes, it will certainly 

 not be for lack of materials. In my harmas 2 

 laboratory, now stocked with a few trees in 

 addition to its bushes, stand some vigorous 

 fir-trees, the Aleppo pine and the black Aus- 

 trian pine, a substitute for that of the Landes. 

 Every year the caterpillar takes possession of 

 them and spins his great purses in their 

 branches. In the interest of the leaves, which 

 are horribly ravaged, as though there had 

 been a fire, I am obliged each winter to make 



1 For the Cicada or Cigale, an insect remotely akin 

 to the Grasshopper and found more particularly in the 

 south of France, cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by 

 J. H. Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall : chaps, i to iv. 

 Translator's Note. 



2 The harmas was the enclosed piece of waste ground 

 in which the author used to study his insects in their 

 natural state. Translator's Note. 



