Our Humble Helpers: Familiar Talks on the Domestic Animals

OUR HUMBLE HELPERS
FAMILIAR TALKS ON THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS
BY JEAN-HENRI FABRE Author of “The Story Book of Science,” “Social Life in the Insect World,” etc. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY FLORENCE CONSTABLE BICKNELL
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1918
Copyright, 1918, by The Century Co.
In its purpose and style this book closely resembles the same author’s “Story-Book of Science,” and it belongs to the same series. To many readers, however, it is likely to prove even more interesting than its predecessor, inasmuch as the domestic animals are more familiar and hence more interesting to many persons than the ant, the spider, the plant-louse, the caterpillar, and other examples of insect life discussed in the earlier work. Particularly at this time, when not a few of us, both old and young, are turning our attention, however inexpertly, to farming in a small way, in order to make the most of nature’s food resources within our reach, we like to become a little better acquainted with the denizens of the farmyard and the four-footed helpers in the field. The pig and the hen, the goose and the turkey, the ox and the ass, the horse and the cow, the sheep and its canine keeper—these and many other old friends of ours in the animal kingdom are made to enliven the following pages by the genius and skill of him who knew and loved them all as few naturalists have known and loved their dumb fellow-creatures.
Under the big elm tree in the garden Uncle Paul has called together for the third time his usual listeners, Emile, Jules, and Louis. After the story of the Ravagers, which destroy our harvests, and that of the Auxiliaries, which protect them, he now proposes to tell the story of our Humble Helpers, the domestic animals. He thus begins:
“The cock and the hen, those invaluable members of our poultry-yards, came to us from Asia so long ago that the remembrance of their coming is lost. At the present day they have spread to all parts of the world.