Note 1 — Chapter II · THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE NEST; THE COMMUNITY

I have often called attention to this feature in animal psychology; notably I have described the ineptitude of the caterpillar of the Great Peacock Moth.1 When the experimenter lops the top off the complicated eel-trap which forms the pointed end of the cocoon, this caterpillar spends the silk remaining to him in work of secondary importance, instead of making good the series of cones, each fitting into the other, which are so essential to the hermit’s protection. He continues his normal task imperturbably, as though nothing out of the way had taken place. Even so does the spinner in the pine-tree act with his burst tent.