THE LIFE OF THE CATERPILLAR BY J. HENRI FABRE TRANSLATED BY Alexander Teixeira de Mattos FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1916 CONTENTS PAGE TRANSLATOR’S NOTE 5 CHAPTER I THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: LAYING THE EGGS 9 II THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE NEST; THE COMMUNITY 27 III THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE PROCESSION 56 IV THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: METEOROLOGY 90 V THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE MOTH 111 VI THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE STINGING POWER 128 VII THE ARBUTUS CATERPILLAR 150 VIII AN INSECT VIRUS 161 IX THE PSYCHES: THE LAYING 186 X THE PSYCHES: THE CASES 217 XI THE GREAT PEACOCK 246 XII THE BANDED MONK 279 XIII THE SENSE OF SMELL 300 XIV THE CABBAGE-CATERPILLAR 331 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE This, the sixth volume of the Collected Edition of Fabre’s Entomological Works in English, is the first that I am preparing for publication since the author’s death, on the 11th of October, 1915, at an exceedingly advanced age. It contains all the essays, fourteen in number, which he wrote on Butterflies and Moths, or their caterpillars. Three of these, the chapters entitled The Great Peacock, The Banded Monk and The Sense of Smell, are included under the titles of The Great Peacock, The Oak Eggar and A Truffle-hunter: the Bolboceras Gallicus in a volume of miscellaneous extracts from the Souvenirs entomologiques translated by Mr. Bernard Miall and published by the Century Company. The volume in question is named Social Life in the Insect World; and I strongly recommend it to the reader, if only because of the excellent photographs from nature with which it is illustrated. Chapter III. of the present volume, The Pine Processionary: the Procession, has appeared in the Fortnightly Review; and Chapter XIV., The Cabbage Caterpillar, the last essay but one from the author’s pen, written, I believe, within two or three years of his death, was first printed in the Century Magazine, some time before its publication in the original. It does not form part of the Souvenirs entomologiques. The remaining essays are new in their English guise.