'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)
