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4 TO WHAT STRANGE
USES In colonial days native
birds were killed for more immediately practical reasons than scientific collection,
as Leichhardt's wry entry about a Christmas dinner of suet pudding and stewed
cockatoos in his Journal of an Overland Expedition reminds us. Hunted,
eaten, slaughtered for the feather trade, crafts, ornament and fashion, the uses
for birds were many. Often claiming that Australian birds were 'songless', collectors
and settlers quickly created an actual songlessness in settled lands
by killing birds and destroying their habitat.
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