The Industries of Animals

Burrows, food stores and woven nests supply the working examples in Frédéric Houssay's study of animal behaviour. Organised around the tasks animals perform, the book covers finding food, defending themselves, preparing for their young and building shelters. Its contents range from ants' gardens and bees' precautions to birds' sewing and beavers' dams. Houssay approaches these activities through questions about intelligence, instinct and evolution.

The English edition of 1893 opens by tracing a change from collecting and classifying specimens to laboratory research and theories that connect observed facts. In the discussion of dwellings, cuckoos and cowbirds illustrate another strategy: placing eggs in other birds' nests. Human comparisons give the account a conversational, sometimes judgmental voice. Readers interested in animal behaviour or the history of biology can follow both its practical examples and the scientific arguments used to explain them.