CHAPTER III 



THE PINE PROCESSIONARY : THE PROCESSION 



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 al- 

 ways to follow the first, wheresoever it goes ; 

 which makes Aristotle mark them for the 

 most silly and foolish animals in the world." 1 



The Pine Caterpillar is even more sheep- 

 like, not from foolishness, but from necessity : 

 where the first goes all the others go, in a 

 regular string, with not an empty space be- 

 tween 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 scrupulously 

 described by all the others. No Greek theoria 

 winding its way to the Eleusinian festivals was 



1 Book IV., chap. viii. Translator's Note. 

 S8 



