THE COCKATOOS. 137 



fearful screaming such as is never lieard from any other bird. 

 Travellers especially mention one trait which is common to the 

 Amazons and some others — that is, the sympathy they show for 

 a companion which has been shot. With shrill cries of lamen- 

 tation they flutter round it, and do not fly away until the 

 sportsman has brought down others of their number. Their 

 food consists of nuts and kernels, less frequently of fleshy fruits, 

 besides all kinds of seeds, tubers, and, of course, maize and other 

 grain. Like the other parrots, they build their nests in hollow 

 trees, but some use holes in cliffs and rocks ; the breeding time 

 is during our autumn and winter months, that being the spring 

 of the antipodes. The larger species are said to lay two or 

 three, the smaller four to six, eggs. After nesting time the 

 flocks feed on the crops of the settlers, and effect great damage. 

 For this reason, as well as for their delicious flesh and their 

 feathers, they are hotly pursued. The settlers destroy them 

 with guns, and the natives with a missile weapon known as the 

 boomerang. Hence they are for the most part driven from the 

 inhabited places, and forced to retreat to the bush. 



Buffon speaks emphatically in their praise. He declares that 

 their beauty is enhanced by their pleasing ways and gentle 

 behaviour ; that they are not only pert, merry, and droll, but 

 also active and lively ; that in learning {i.e., aptitude for being 

 trained) they appear to surpass all other parrots, but that they 

 are far behind most species in talent for speech. Other authors 

 also, incuding those of our own day, speak favourably of 

 Cockatoos. " Their curiosity is unbounded," writes Lord Buxton ; 

 " indeed, one might say that they regard man and his doings 

 with the greatest interest, perhaps not totally devoid of con- 

 tempt." Mr. Friedel says : " The Cockatoo is more a thinking 

 and philosophising bird than any other, and, on account of its 

 intense individuality, needs especially careful management, 

 though this unfortunately seldom falls to its lot. In zoological 

 gardens and menageries, with large numbers of similar birds, 

 nothing of the kind can be entertained ; and in families which 

 foster vanity and love of display by means of the bird and its 

 cage, no one really cares for it ; in both cases the Cockatoo 

 repays such neglect by sulkiness of manner. Among middle- 

 class people, where, although petted, it is quite as much mis- 

 understood, it soon, by means of its great cunning and power of 

 comprehending its surroundings, becomes master of the situation 

 — that is, of the female members of the family, and, with its 



