Keith Collingwood McKeown was an entomologist and assistant curator of insects at the Australian Museum in Sydney from 1929 to his death (with a possible break during World War Two, when he enlisted in the Australian Armed Forces). Earlier, from 1915, he had worked as a clerk with the New South Wales Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission, Murrumbidgee Irrigation Areas, until appointed as Entomological Research Officer in 1927. As well as his work of children's fiction, he wrote popular natural history books, including
Insect Wonders of Australia (1935),
Spider Wonders of Australia (1936),
Notes on Australian Cerambycidae (1937),
The Land of Byamee (1938), which featured legends and facts about Australian nature and wildlife,
Australian Insects : An Introductory Handbook (1942) and
Nature in Australia (1949). He also published various field notes and Australian insect catalogues, and numerous articles on Australian natural history in the
Australian Museum Magazine,
Australian Woman's Mirror and
Australian Zoologist.
Moograbah : An Australian Aboriginal Legend, published by Angus and Robertson in 1951, is a retelling of an Aboriginal story recorded by Keith McKeown in his anthropological text
The Land of Byamee.
