Nibbled down to their veins, the supporting leaves wither and easily come unfastened from the branches; and the silken globe becomes a hovel that crumbles with the first gust of wind. The family then moves on and goes elsewhere to erect a new tent, lasting no longer than the first. Even so does the Arab move on, as the pastures around his camel-hide dwelling become exhausted. These temporary establishments are renewed several times over, always at greater heights than the last, so much so that the tribe, which was hatched on the lower branches trailing on the ground, gradually reaches the higher boughs and sometimes the very summit of the pine-tree. In a few weeks’ time, a first moult replaces the humble fleece of the start, which is pale-coloured, shaggy and ugly, by another which lacks neither richness nor elegance. On the dorsal surface, the various segments, excepting the first three, are adorned with a mosaic of six little bare patches, of a bright red, which stand out a little above the dark background of the skin. Two, the largest, are in front, two behind and one, almost dot-shaped, on either side of the quadrilateral. The whole is surrounded by a palisade of scarlet bristles, divergent and lying almost flat. The other hairs, those of the belly and sides, are longer and whitish. In the centre of this crimson marquetry stand two clusters of very short bristles, gathered into flattened tufts which gleam in the sun like specks of gold. The length of the caterpillar is now about two centimetres [6] and his width three or four millimetres. [7] Such is the costume of middle age, which, like the earlier one, was unknown to Réaumur. CHAPTER II THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE NEST; THE COMMUNITY November arrives, however, bringing cold weather; the time has come to build the stout winter tabernacle. High up in the pine the tip of a bough is chosen, with suitably close-packed and convergent leaves. The spinners surround it with a spreading network, which bends the adjacent leaves a little nearer and ends by incorporating them into the fabric. In this way they obtain an enclosure half silk, half leaves, capable of withstanding the inclemencies of the weather. Early in December the work has increased to the size of a man’s two fists or more. In its ultimate perfection, it attains a volume of nearly half a gallon by the end of winter.