Richard Symanski鈥檚 account of a trip with Nancy Burley to study waxbill
finches in Northern Australia, Black-Hearts: Ecology in outback Australia, is an
odd book. A noted behavioural ornithologist, Burley aimed to test her theories
of mate choice in wild finch populations and compare them to results from her
years of work on captive birds. It wasn鈥檛 a happy experience. Symanski (married
to Burley) sets off to plan the study sites, the students are recruited in the
US, the funds are in place鈥攁nd then it all goes wrong.
The students can鈥檛 quite do the stuff they said they could. And they don鈥檛
like the outback, the flies, the work. The lead researchers feel like parents to
a pack of adolescents. It鈥檚 disturbing to read鈥攁nger and disappointment as
fresh as it was nine years ago. Incompetence is rewarded, says Symanski
bitterly, as he chronicles where the students ended up. Hope he had the lawyers
read the script. Published by Yale University Press, 拢22.50, ISBN
0300078196.