Graham Pizzey

"One of Australia's least savoury wildlife episodes was the long slaughter of s for their fur, which continued in some States to the end of the 1920's. In 1924 over 2 million koala pelts were exported, many under the pseudonym of to avoid the odium of publicity."

"From time to time I get a query about an unusual waterhen people have seen. It's usually described as dark, with red legs — and a cocked tail that makes it look 'like a little '. Some say they have seen it far from water. Most agree that 'it runs like hell'. Over the years I've had more technical enquiries, but there's not the slightest doubt the bird in question in this case is that peculiarly Australian creation, the black-tailed native-hen ('), a species of small ."

"An extraordinary diversity of , , bird and fauna had developed from n ancestors. Small, sharp-fanged marsupial 'lions'; cow-sized browsing s; giant kangaroos, even a kangaroo thought by its dentition to have been carnivorous; and huge, 3-metre flightless birds were all present."

"Watching bouncing, tinkling flocks of es feeding on thistles at once, the American ornithologist Dr guessed he had seen more goldfinches there than even in Europe."

"The lawyer-ornithologist tells of removing a 's nest from a 'well-formed hollow' in a in the outer suburbs of ... Two weeks later he cleared out a 's nest from the hollow. Three weeks later he flushed a from a clutch of three eggs in the same hollow. Clearly the starling is causing losses among native birds ..."

"The late , a Sydney printer and skilled and deservedly respected ornithologist, considered the to breed rarely in in his early days (born in 1904, he died in 1971). But in later years he recorded that some birds were always present and breeding. It seems likely that, in part at least, this change reflected the planting of flowering trees and shrubs in Sydney gardens."