Are you satisfied, my master? Do you now perceive the great utility of the scaly stairs? Would you not say that we have here a magnificent example of an instrument superlatively fitted for a definite task? I share this opinion, for I think, with you, that a sovereign Reason has in all things coordinated the means and the end.

But let me tell you: we are called old-fashioned, you and I; with our conception of [[122]]a world ruled by an Intelligence, we are quite out of the swim. Order, balance, harmony: that is all silly nonsense. The universe is a fortuitous arrangement in the chaos of the possible. What is white might as easily be black, what is round might be angular, what is regular might be shapeless and harmony might just as well be discord. Chance has decided all things.

Yes, we are a pair of prejudiced old fogeys when we linger with a certain fondness over the marvels of perfection. Who troubles about these futilities nowadays? So-called serious science, the science which spells honour, profit and renown, consists in slicing your animal with very costly instruments into tiny circular sections. My housekeeper does as much with a bunch of carrots, with no higher pretension than to concoct a modest dish, which is not an invariable success. In the problem of life are we more successful when we have split a fibre into four and cut a cell into shavings? It hardly seems so. The riddle is as dark as ever. Ah, how much better is your method, my dear master; above all, how much loftier your philosophy, how much more wholesome and invigorating! [[123]]

Here at last is the Moth at the surface. With the deliberate slowness demanded by so delicate an operation, she spreads her bunched wings, extends her antennæ and puffs out her fleece. Her costume is a modest one: upper wings grey, striped with a few crinkly brown streaks; under-wings white; thorax covered with thick grey fur; abdomen clad in bright-russet velvet. The last segment has a pale-gold sheen. At first sight it appears bare. It is not, however; but, in place of hairs like those of the other segments, it has, on its dorsal surface, scales so well assembled and so close together that the whole seems to form a continuous block, like a nugget.

Let us touch this trinket with the point of a needle. However gently we rub, a multitude of scales come off and flutter at the least breath, shining like mica spangles. Their concave form, their shape, an elongated oval, their colouring, white in the lower half but reddish gold in the upper, give them, if we allow for the difference in size, a certain resemblance to the scales surrounding the heads of some of the centaury tribe. Such is the golden fleece of which the mother will despoil herself in order to cover the cylinder of [[124]]her eggs. The nugget of her hind-quarters, exfoliated spangle by spangle, will form a roof for the germs arranged like the grain in a corn-cob.

I was anxious to watch the actual placing of these pretty tiles, which are fixed at the pale end with a speck of cement, leaving the coloured end free. Circumstances did not favour me. Inactive all day, motionless on some needle of the lower branches, the Moth, whose life is very short, moves only in the darkness of the night. Both her mating and egg-laying are nocturnal. On the morrow, all is finished: the Bombyx has lived. Under these conditions, it was impossible, by the doubtful beams of a lantern, to follow satisfactorily the labour of the mother on the pine-trees in the garden.

I was no more fortunate with the captives in my bell-glasses. A few did lay their eggs, but always at a very advanced hour of the night, an hour which found my vigilance at fault. The light of a candle and eyes heavy with sleep were of little avail when it came to analysing the subtle operations of the mother as she puts her scales in place. We [[125]]will say nothing of the little that was imperfectly seen.

Let us close with a few words of sylvicultural practice. The Pine Processionary is a voracious caterpillar who, while respecting the terminal bud, protected by its scales and its resinous varnish, completely denudes the bough and imperils the tree by leaving it bald. The green pine-needles, that mane in which the vegetable vigour of the tree resides, are shorn to the roots. How are we to remedy this?

When consulted on the subject, the forest-ranger of my parish told me that the custom is to go from tree to tree with pruning-shears fitted on a long pole and to cut down the nests, afterwards burning them. The method is a troublesome one, for the silken purses are often at considerable heights. Moreover, it is not without danger. Attacked by the hairy dust, the destroyers soon experience intolerable discomfort, a torture of irritation which makes them refuse to continue the work. To my thinking it would be better to operate before the appearance of the nests.

The Pine Bombyx is a very bad flyer. Incapable of soaring, almost like the Silk-moth, [[126]]she flutters about and blunders to earth again; and her best efforts barely succeed in bringing her to the lower branches, which almost drag along the ground. Here are deposited the cylinders of eggs, at a height of six feet at most. It is the young caterpillars who, from one provisional encampment to another, gradually ascend, attaining, stage by stage, the summits upon which they weave their final dwellings. Once we grasp this peculiarity, the rest is plain sailing.