Later, in February, when an occasional fine day allows of long processions on the walls and the sand-covered shelf of the greenhouse, I am able to watch the fusing of two groups without personally intervening. All that I have to do is patiently to follow the evolutions of a file on the march. I see it sometimes, after leaving one nest, enter a different one, guided by some fortuitous change of route. Thenceforward the strangers form part of the community on the same footing as the others. In a like fashion, when the caterpillars walk abroad upon the tree at night, the scanty groups of the outset must increase and gather the number of spinners which an extensive building requires. Everything for everybody. So says the Pine Processionary, nibbling his leaves without quarrelling in the least over his neighbours’ mouthfuls, or else entering—and being always peacefully received—another’s home precisely as he would his own. Whether a member of the tribe or a stranger, he finds room in the refectory and room in the dormitory. The others’ nest is his nest. The others’ grazing-ground is his grazing-ground, in which he is entitled to his fair share, one neither greater nor smaller than the share of his habitual or casual companions. Each for all and all for each. So says the Processionary, who every evening spends his little capital of silk on enlarging a shelter that is often new to him. What would he do with his puny skein, if alone? Hardly anything. But there are hundreds and hundreds of them in the spinning-mill; and the result of their infinitesimal contributions, woven into a common stuff, is a thick blanket capable of resisting the winter. In working for himself, each works for the others; and these on their side work as zealously for each. O lucky animals that know nothing of property, the mother of strife! O enviable cenobites, who practise the strictest communism! These habits of the caterpillars invite a few reflections. Generous minds, richer in illusions than in logic, set communism before us as the sovran cure for human ills. Is it practicable among mankind? At all times there have been, there still are and there always will be, fortunately, associations in which it is possible to forget in common some small part of the hardships of life; but is it possible to generalize? The caterpillars of the pine can give us much valuable information in this respect. Let us have no false shame: our material needs are shared by the animals; they struggle as we do to take part in the general banquet of the living; and the manner in which they solve the problem of existence is not to be despised. Let us then ask ourselves what are the reasons that cause cenobitism to flourish among the Processionaries.