IMPERFECY SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 23 
ticed; they march together from their common citadel, 
consisting of pine-leaves united and inweven with the 
silk which they spin, in a single line: in following each 
other they describe a multitude of graceful curves of 
varying figure, thus forming a series of living wreaths, 
which change their shape every moment :—all move with 
a uniform pace, no one pressing too forward or loitering 
behind; when the first stops, all stop, each defiling in 
exact military order*, 
A still more singular and pleasing spectacle, when 
their regiments march out to forage, is exhibited by the 
Processionary Bombyx. This moth, which is a native cf 
France, and has not yet been found in this country, in- 
habits the oak. Each family consists of from 600 to 
800 individuals. When young, they have no fixed 
habitation, but encamp sometimes in one place and somie- 
times in another, under the shelter of their web: but 
when they have attained two-thirds of their growth, 
they weave for themselves a common tent, before de- 
scribed’, About sun-set the regiment leaves its quar- 
ters; or, to make the metaphor harmonize with the trivial 
name of the animal, the monks their ccenobium. At 
their head is a chief, by whose movements their proces- 
sion is regulated. When he stops, all stop, and pro- 
ceed when he proceeds; three or four of his immediate 
followers succeed in the same line, the head of the 
second touching the tail of the first; then comes an equal 
series of pairs, next of threes, and so on as far as fifteen 
or twenty. The whole procession moves regularly on 
2 BOMNet wtih oy. b Vor. I. 4th Ed, 478. 
