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THE PINE-PROCESSIONARY.
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 always to follow the first, wheresoever it goes." The Pine caterpillar is even more sheeplike, not from foolishness, but from necessity: where the first goes all the others go, in a regular string, with not an empty space between 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 ever more orderly.

Hence the name of Processionary given to the gnawer of the pine.
His character is complete when we add that he is a rope-dancer all his life long: he walks only on the tight-rope, a silken rail placed in position as he advances.