The caterpillars' heads give sudden jerks, their bodies wriggle.
One of the pioneers decides to take the plunge.

He slips under the ledge.

Four follow him.

The others, still confiding in the perfidious silken path, dare not copy him and continue to go along the old road.
The short string detached from the general chain gropes about a great deal, hesitates long on the side of the vase; it goes half-way down, then climbs up again slantwise, rejoins and takes its place in the procession.

This time the attempt has failed, though at the foot of the vase, not nine inches away, there lay a bunch of pine-needles which I had placed there with the object of enticing the hungry ones.