N£STS and eggs of AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 603 



Obccrvatiuns. — Tliis large and cxccdingly fine Black Cockatoo, easily 

 distinguished by it* j'cllow-hai'rcd tail, is a lover of the wild timber 

 tracts and mountainous regions of Eastern Australia, more particularly 

 the southern part, and Tasmania. Duiing the expeditions of the Field 

 Naturalists' Club to Bass Strait, the birds were seen in the blue-gum 

 forests of King and Flinders Islands. 



The late Mr. H. W. Wheelwright mentioned once having shot a 

 female Funereal Cockatoo in Maj', with an egg in her. In the olden 

 days (the fifties) these birds used chieily to frequent the banksias, but 

 often the large gums, in the neighbourhood of Mordialloc. They first 

 came in flocks, but as winter advanced they appeared to separate. 



Another " Old Time Memory ' note by Mr. Isaac Batey, Sunbuiy, 

 Victoria, reads thus : — " The yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, a bush 

 barometer for storms up coimtiy in the old times, used to trace the 

 creeks after wattle giixbs. About 1849, a pair of red-tailed Cockatoos 

 visited tliis place, the only instance I know of these bu'ds having done 

 so, one of which my father succeeded in shooting after an incredible 

 deal of trouble." 



A large flock of Funereal Cockatoos were seen in the Mallee district 

 of Victoria, in the vrinter of 1897. Another flock was noticed in 

 October, 1898, while in Sejitember, 1899, I noticed a small number 

 myself. 



The eggs of the Fimereal or Yellow-eared Black Cockatoo are ex- 

 tremely difficult to procure, for the reason that the bird seeks a tall 

 rotten tree in the most inaccessible parts of the forest wherein to nest. 

 In Gould's day he experienced the same difficulty in obtaining examples. 

 On the 2ud February, 1839, he received a note from a correspondent 

 in Tasmania, which ran as follows : — " In compliance with yom' request 

 I wrote to Mr. Wettenhall upon the subject of the Black Cockatoo's 

 nest, and he forthwith directed his shepherd to fell the tree in which 

 the bird had estabUslied itself. It was situated in a gully, and was 

 about 4i feet in diameter. The hole was from ninety to one hundred 

 feet from the ground, two feet in depth, and made quite smooth, the 

 heart of the tree being decayed. There was no appearance whatever oT 

 a nest. The tree was broken to pieces by the fall, and the contents of 

 the hole or nest destroyed ; the fragments, however, were sought for 

 with the greatest care, and all that could be found are sent you. It 

 may perhaps be as well to state that both while the tree was being 

 felled, and for a short time afterwards, a Hawk kept attacking the 

 Cockatoo, which flew in circles round the tree before it fell, uttering its 

 loudest and most mournful notes, and at times turning upon the Hawk, 

 until at length it flew oflf." 



Another coiTespondent informed Gould that this bird " lays two 

 white eggs in some large rotten gum-tree, generally where one of the 

 largo branches has rotted off at the fork; iusicle tliis hole, which 

 occasionally extends five or six feet down the bole of the tree, the bird 

 scrapes and clears away some of the rotten wood until a sort of seat 

 is formed, for it is a very rude attempt at making a nest. The laying 

 commences about the latter end of October, or beginning of November. 

 The bird, which at other times is very shy and wild, now becomes very 



