Part 5

Cacatua chrysolophus, Less. Traité d’Orn., p. 182.

Car’away and Cur’riang, Aborigines of New South Wales.

Mangarape, Papuans of New Guinea.

If we regard the White Cockatoo of Van Diemen’s Land, that of the continent of Australia, and that of New Guinea as mere varieties of each other, this species has a more extensive range than most other birds. It is an inhabitant of all the Australian colonies, both on the southern and northern coasts, but has not yet been observed on the western.

On a close examination of specimens from the three countries above mentioned, a decided difference is observable in the structure of the bill, but of too trivial a character, in my opinion, to warrant their being considered as distinct; in fact, it would seem to be merely a modification of the organ for the peculiar kind of food afforded by the respective countries. The Van Diemen’s Land bird is the largest in every respect, and has the bill, particularly the upper mandible, less abruptly curved, exhibiting a tendency to the form of that organ in the genus Licmetis: the bill of the New Guinea bird is much rounder, and is, in fact, fitted to perform a totally different office from that of the White Cockatoo of Van Diemen’s Land, which I have ascertained, by dissection, subsists principally on the small bulbs of the terrestrial Orchidaceæ, for procuring which its lengthened upper mandible is admirably adapted; while it is more than probable that no food of this kind is to be obtained by the New Guinea bird, the structure of whose bill indicates that hard seeds, nuts, &c. constitute the principal part of its diet. The crops and stomachs of those killed in Van Diemen’s Land were very muscular, and contained seeds, grain, native bread (a species of fungus), small tuberous and bulbous roots, and, in most instances, large stones.

As may be readily imagined, this bird is not upon favourable terms with the agriculturist, upon whose fields of newly-sown grain and ripening maize it commits the greatest devastation; it is consequently hunted and shot down wherever it is found, a circumstance which tends much to lessen its numbers; it is still, however, very numerous, moving about in flocks varying from a hundred to a thousand in number, and evinces a decided preference to the open plains and cleared lands, rather than to the dense brushes near the coast. Except when feeding, or reposing on the trees after a repast, the presence of a flock, if not seen, is certain to be indicated by their horrid screaming notes, the discordance of which may be slightly conceived by those who have heard the peculiarly loud, piercing, grating scream of the bird in captivity, always remembering the immense increase of the din occasioned by the large number of birds emitting their disagreeable notes at the same moment; still I ever considered this annoyance amply compensated for by their sprightly actions and the life their snowy forms imparted to the dense and never-varying green of the Australian forest; a feeling participated in by Sir Thomas Mitchell, who says that “amidst the umbrageous foliage, forming dense masses of shade, the white Cockatoos sported like spirits of light.”

The situations chosen by this bird for the purpose of nidification vary with the nature of the locality it inhabits; the eggs are usually deposited in the holes of trees, but they are also placed in fissures in the rocks wherever they may present a convenient site: the crevices of the white cliffs bordering the Murray, in South Australia, are annually resorted to for this purpose by thousands of this bird, and are said to be completely honeycombed by them. The eggs are two in number, of a pure white, rather pointed at the smaller end, one inch and seven lines long by one inch two and a half lines broad.

All the plumage white, with the exception of the elongated occipital crest, which is deep sulphur-yellow, and the ear-coverts, centre of the under surface of the wing, and the basal portion of the inner webs of the tail-feathers, which are pale sulphur-yellow; irides and bill black; orbits white; feet greyish brown.

The figures are somewhat smaller than the natural size.

CACATUA LEADBEATERI: Wagl.

J. Gould and H.C. Richter del et lith. C. Hullmandel Imp. ]

CACATUA LEADBEATERI, Wagl. Leadbeater’s Cockatoo.

Plyctolophus Leadbeateri, Vig. in Proc. of Comm, of Sci. and Corr. of Zool. Soc., Part I. p. 61; Lear’s Ill. Psitt. pl. 5; and in Phil. Mag. 1831, p. 55.—Gould in Syn. of Birds of Australia, Part IV.—Mitch. Australian Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 47.

Cacatua Leadbeateri, Wagl. Mon. Psitt, in Abhand., p. 692.

Jak-k̏ul-yȁk-kul, Aborigines of the mountain districts of Western Australia.

Pink Cockatoo, Colonists of Swan River.

This beautiful species of Cockatoo enjoys a wide range over the southern portions of the Australian continent; it never approaches very near the sea, but evinces a decided preference for the belts of lofty gums and scrubs clothing the sides of the rivers of the interior of the country; it annually visits the Toodyay district of Western Australia; and, as I ascertained, it annually breeds at Gawler in South Australia. On reading the works of Sturt and Mitchell, I find that both those travellers met with it in the course of their explorations, particularly on the hanks of the rivers Darling and Murray; in fact, most of the interior districts between New South Wales and Adelaide are inhabited by it: future research alone will determine the extent of its range to the northward; as yet no specimen has been received either from the north or north-west coasts.

It must be admitted that this species is at once the most beautiful and elegant of the genus yet discovered, and it will consequently ever be most highly prized for the cage and the aviary; two examples, now in the possession of the Earl of Derby, appear to bear confinement equally as well as any of their congeners; in their disposition they are not so sprightly and animated, but at the same time they are much less noisy, a circumstance which tends to enhance rather than decrease our partiality for them.

Few birds tend more to enliven the monotonous hues of the Australian forests than this beautiful species, whose “pink-coloured wings and glowing crest,” says Sir T. Mitchell, “might have embellished the air of a more voluptuous region.”

Its note is more plaintive than that of C. galerita, and does not partake of the harsh grating sound peculiar to that species.

General plumage white; forehead, front and sides of the neck, centre of the under surface of the wing, middle of the abdomen, and the basal portion of the inner webs of the tail-feathers tinged with rose-colour, becoming of a rich salmon-colour under the wing; feathers of the occipital crest crimson at the base, with a yellow spot in the centre and white at the tip; bill light horn-colour; feet dark brown.

The sexes are nearly equal in size; but the female has the yellow spots in the centre of the crest more conspicuous and better defined than her mate, whose crest, although larger, is not so diversified in colour as that of his mate; on the other hand, the salmon tint of the under surface is much more intense in the male than in the female.

The Plate represents the two sexes about the natural size.

CACATUA SANGUINEA: Gould.

J. Gould and H.C. Richter del et lith. C. Hullmandel Imp. ]

CACATUA SANGUINEA, Gould. Blood-stained Cockatoo.

Cacatua sanguinea, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 138.

The circumstance of this species never having been characterized until I described it in the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” above quoted, may doubtless be attributed to its being solely an inhabitant of the north and north-west coasts of Australia, portions of the country where few collections have been formed. With the exception of a specimen brought home by Captain Chambers, R.N., and another in the collection of Mr. Bankier, my own specimens are all that I have ever seen; the whole of these were collected at Port Essington.