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,
What Work Is workers, but artists, readers, and academics. Levine's poetry is accessible and moving and is utterly American. The poems in "What Work Is" are more subtle in their thematic construction. Levine does not use caricatures in these poems but instead intimates real blue-collar workers. Many of the poems give a representation of a station of life not common in the subject matter of contemporary American poetry. Although not all of "What Work Is" is primarily about the working class. Instead the poems have a wide range and variety. However many of these poems, despite their subject matter, show elements that identify