Note 3 — TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Better served than he by circumstances, I will take up afresh the story of the Processionary 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 harmas3 laboratory, now stocked with a few trees in addition to its bushes, stand some vigorous fir-trees, the Aleppo pine and the black Austrian 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 a strict survey and to extirpate the nests with a long forked batten.