Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union early 20th century called themselves 'oologists', though the distinction between the notionally scientific discipline of oology and simple egg-collecting was blurred. Identification of any but the most common and distinctive species usually entailed the collection of specimens to be made into study skins. Modern field-guides did not exist and few people could afford the massive multi-volume, lavishly illustrated, handbooks of John Gould and Gregory Mathews. However, both Archibald J. Campbell and Alfred North had produced comprehensive guides to what was known about the nests and eggs of Australian birds, with illustrations of the eggs rather than of the birds themselves,
Empirical study of literature when it is concerned with questions of reading. In these two areas research and studies based on the framework are steadily growing. Further fields where the framework in various revised and expanded versions attracts scholarship is (comparative) cultural studies and pedagogy. One of several dictionary definitions of the field is as follows: “Movement within the study of literature concerned with the study of literature as a social system of [inter]actions. The main question is what happens to literature: it is written, published, distributed, read, censored, imitated, etc. The empirical study of literature originated as a reaction to, and an attempt