Joint human-insect anxiety

"It is the air of urgency which strikes a responsive chord in me when I see him (a wooly caterpillar} on a garden path in late September. His consciousness, if any, must be dim. He cannot know why he is in a hurry, only that he is. But I recognize in myself a similar vague uneasiness. My preparations for the winter have been made.....But the confidence of summer has imperceptibly faded. Something impends.

"When I was a boy I used to attribute this feelings of uneasiness to the knowledge that I would be going unwillingly to school again. As a matter of fact, I still have to do just that, and perhaps this is part of the reason why something within me begins to grow tense. But it is certainly no more than a factor or even a rationalization. Isia isabella (wooly caterpillar} and I know in our nerves and our muscles that something pretty drastic is going to happen and we are not sure that the most we can do about will be enough.''