Melbourne Zoo at 150
Work and Play
By Christine Kenneally
The exoskeleton of the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect is such a deep, glazed black that it looks like it crawled out of a Flemish oil painting. When Jenny Gray, the CEO of Zoos Victoria, holds one in her outstretched hand (firmly cuffing her sleeve with the other), its long body stretches from the base of her palm to the tip of her fingers. Gray tells me that in the early twentieth century a s
The Idea of the North
Travels in the Northern Realm
By Nicolas Rothwell
Given such characteristics, it is no great wonder that Western incomers, over the past two centuries of concerted northern settlement, have been perplexed and ill at ease in their new imperium, which they have endeavoured constantly to describe and classify, to comprehend and capture, without a strong sense of confidence that the landscape will surrender to their will. What were they seekin
Hopper’s Crossing
By Ashley Hay
Should you be strolling among the tombstones of St Kilda Cemetery, in Melbourne, or St Anne's, Kew, just outside London, later this spring and hear a strange noise, it may be the sound of some of history's finest botanists turning in their graves. These are the burial places, respectively, of Ferdinand Mueller, Victoria's inaugural government botanist, and of Sir William Jackson Hooker, the first official director of the Royal Botanic G
