BIRDS IN SONG.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17078, 16 April 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

BIRDS IN SONG.

Addressing members of the Lyceum Club at Sydney, ' Mr A. H. Chisholm (editor of the Emu, the official journal of Australian bird students) suggested that one good bird-poem, calculated to sing its way into the hearts of the people, was worth a year’s propaganda in the interests of Australian birds. He pleaded with the poets present —and all others —to seek to introduce fresh air into their verse—do “shake out their carols” as freely as do the birds themselves.

After quoting Kendall’s “Bellbirds,” Paterson’s “Black Swans,” and one or two other Australian birdpoems, the speaker declared that more worth-while bird-poems had been written in Australia during the last ten years than in 'SO years previously. lie instanced the work of Mary Gilmore, Shaw Ncilson, Roderic Quinn, Elsie Cole, Frank Williamson, and sundry others, and said it should be possible for poets and birdstudents, with the aid of children, to evolve better names for certain Australian birds. It was added that the spirit-of-fact was superior to the matter-of-fact in bird-poetry; but it was also emphasised that the poet should endeavour to immortalise particular birds, as Keats and Shelley did the nightingale and skylark-