'Alec Chisholm inspired Australians to see nature anew. His Mateship with Birds, published in 1922, is a classic of nature writing, and until his death in 1977 he urged his compatriots to cherish the natural world as their national heritage. Chisholm was a pioneer conservationist, a leading ornithologist, and much else besides. He earned renown – and some controversy – as a journalist, biographer, historian and encyclopaedia editor. Idling in Green Places is the first full biography of this intriguing and influential Australian.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'Do birds play? When a lyrebird performs its virtuosic mimicry or the bowerbird decorates its bower in brilliant shades of blue, should we perceive a mindless following of evolutionarily ingrained impulses towards procreation, or rather evidence of joy, vivacity and artistic sensibility? The question of bird playfulness was a vexed one in conservationist and ornithological circles in the 1940s and 1950s, but for Alec Chisholm, the answer was a resounding and intransigent yes. He was frustrated by what he saw amongst his scientific peers as the ‘matter-of-fact viewpoint that persists in limiting all bird-motives to a utilitarian basis’ (95). In contrast to these ‘stodgy scientists’, Chisholm depicted birds as perfectly capable of ‘purposeless pleasure’, ‘bird-games’ and ‘zest for life’ (106). Birds who mimicked, like the lyrebird, did so because they were ‘sound-lovers’ brimming with irrepressible ‘joie-de-vivre’ (106). He would steadfastly defend birds’ capacity for play throughout his long and celebrated career.' (Introduction)
(Publication summary)
'My family home was not bookish, but there was a ten volume set of the Australian Encyclopaedia, shelved alongside the novels of Neville Shute and Arthur Upfield. First published in 1958 by Angus and Robertson, ours was the 1963 edition from the Grolier Society, purchased in response to that US‐based company's practice of direct‐to‐the‐home appeals to parents to take their children's education seriously. I was regularly advised to “look it up”. The Encyclopaedia was a distinctive reference text, exclusively, almost defiantly Australian, with a marked concentration on people, place, native fauna and flora. “Special articles” included 75, 000 words (the longest entry) on “Australia's aborigines”, “written by 12 authorities from various States, and illustrated with 14 pages of photographs and 13 maps”. Its glossy paper squeaked between your fingers: 400 “authorities” gave it gravitas, among them government departments, other institutions and individuals — from the president of a Hard Court Lawn Tennis Association to a retired naval commander (writing on “Australiana”) to a professor of nuclear physics. The Encyclopaedia marked a transition from a self‐improving nationalism to a more objectified learning. Its editor‐in‐chief, “Alec H. Chisholm”, insisted that “human interest” and “Austral‐oddities” must leaven the strict adherence to “facts” demanded by the venture. In this subtle biography of Chisholm, Russell McGregor alerts us to the many ways in which his subject marked several such transitions, and tensions, in his career, persona and personality.' (Introduction)
'The proliferation goes on. The amount of new words being coined to name the reality and effects of our current era of natural and cultural crisis seems at times to be some kind of teeming linguistic correction to species extinction on a heating planet. I’ve listed them before in essays and reviews — anthropocene, capitalocene, ecocene, symbiocene, gynocene, chthulucene, etc. I’ve added moolacene, which employs the Wadawurrung word moola from my local region, meaning “shadow”. Moola is, of course, also the US-derived slang word for money, which many think is at the heart of the issue.' (Introduction)
'Australian nature writing has come a long way in recent years. Not only do we have an abundance of contemporary nature writers, but we are also rediscovering the ones we have forgotten. The neglect of Australia’s nature writing history, with its contributions to science, literature, and conservation, is happily being redressed with recent biographies of Jean Galbraith, Rica Erickson, Edith Coleman, and now a new biography of Alec Chisholm.' (Introduction)
'Australian nature writing has come a long way in recent years. Not only do we have an abundance of contemporary nature writers, but we are also rediscovering the ones we have forgotten. The neglect of Australia’s nature writing history, with its contributions to science, literature, and conservation, is happily being redressed with recent biographies of Jean Galbraith, Rica Erickson, Edith Coleman, and now a new biography of Alec Chisholm.' (Introduction)
'The proliferation goes on. The amount of new words being coined to name the reality and effects of our current era of natural and cultural crisis seems at times to be some kind of teeming linguistic correction to species extinction on a heating planet. I’ve listed them before in essays and reviews — anthropocene, capitalocene, ecocene, symbiocene, gynocene, chthulucene, etc. I’ve added moolacene, which employs the Wadawurrung word moola from my local region, meaning “shadow”. Moola is, of course, also the US-derived slang word for money, which many think is at the heart of the issue.' (Introduction)
'My family home was not bookish, but there was a ten volume set of the Australian Encyclopaedia, shelved alongside the novels of Neville Shute and Arthur Upfield. First published in 1958 by Angus and Robertson, ours was the 1963 edition from the Grolier Society, purchased in response to that US‐based company's practice of direct‐to‐the‐home appeals to parents to take their children's education seriously. I was regularly advised to “look it up”. The Encyclopaedia was a distinctive reference text, exclusively, almost defiantly Australian, with a marked concentration on people, place, native fauna and flora. “Special articles” included 75, 000 words (the longest entry) on “Australia's aborigines”, “written by 12 authorities from various States, and illustrated with 14 pages of photographs and 13 maps”. Its glossy paper squeaked between your fingers: 400 “authorities” gave it gravitas, among them government departments, other institutions and individuals — from the president of a Hard Court Lawn Tennis Association to a retired naval commander (writing on “Australiana”) to a professor of nuclear physics. The Encyclopaedia marked a transition from a self‐improving nationalism to a more objectified learning. Its editor‐in‐chief, “Alec H. Chisholm”, insisted that “human interest” and “Austral‐oddities” must leaven the strict adherence to “facts” demanded by the venture. In this subtle biography of Chisholm, Russell McGregor alerts us to the many ways in which his subject marked several such transitions, and tensions, in his career, persona and personality.' (Introduction)
(Publication summary)
'Do birds play? When a lyrebird performs its virtuosic mimicry or the bowerbird decorates its bower in brilliant shades of blue, should we perceive a mindless following of evolutionarily ingrained impulses towards procreation, or rather evidence of joy, vivacity and artistic sensibility? The question of bird playfulness was a vexed one in conservationist and ornithological circles in the 1940s and 1950s, but for Alec Chisholm, the answer was a resounding and intransigent yes. He was frustrated by what he saw amongst his scientific peers as the ‘matter-of-fact viewpoint that persists in limiting all bird-motives to a utilitarian basis’ (95). In contrast to these ‘stodgy scientists’, Chisholm depicted birds as perfectly capable of ‘purposeless pleasure’, ‘bird-games’ and ‘zest for life’ (106). Birds who mimicked, like the lyrebird, did so because they were ‘sound-lovers’ brimming with irrepressible ‘joie-de-vivre’ (106). He would steadfastly defend birds’ capacity for play throughout his long and celebrated career.' (Introduction)
