Media: hardcover - 154 pages plus 52 plates
Authors: H.H. Finlayson
Year: 1943 (5th edition)

Note: book is complete, but the spine and front cover are partly separated from the main the book.

FROM THE FOREWORD

Every now and again we are told that some distinguished gentleman has arrived from overseas for the purpose of studying and collecting our interesting native fauna. And, judging by the Press accounts of these enterprises, we think very highly of them. Travelling facilities are generally placed at the disposal of the visitor. His description of the Nullarbor Plains, as he saw them from the Transcontinental train, is read with interest as being something of news value. His meeting with some station aborigines and his capture of a bandicoot provide the real outback atmosphere. On his return to civilization he is interviewed and he tells of his adventures in the great open plains. His specimens go to some museum overseas and everyone is satisfied.

And in all this we seem rather likely to overlook the fact that no fleeting visit to the Centre by a chance visitor can ever hope to reveal much of the realities of this vast region. Worse still, we are in danger of forgetting that in our midst their are some men to whom Central Australia and its flora and fauna are a hobby and a life study. For these men there are no waiting reporters, no travelling facilities offered by Governments. Their work is the work of love. Their quest is the quest of knowledge and the fruits of that quest are placed at the disposal of their country. They do not receive the adulation that we are accustomed to lavish upon distinguished visitors, but their work stands out as a great constructive effort amidst ... No livng man has done so much in rescuing from oblivion those sparse but interesting mammals that still inhabit Australia as has Finlayson ...