COCK A TOO—COCK-OF- THE-ROCK 93 



COCKATOO, Malay Kakcdua, a name used in England and, 

 with some modification of spelling, in other European countries for 

 more than 200 years, and undoubtedly taken from the cry of one or 

 other of the Avell-known birds so called, though it would be impossible 

 to say which of them. With the exception of one species which 

 inhabits the Philippine Islands, the Cockatoos are peculiar to the 

 Australian Region, and are especially abundant in that portion of 

 the Malay Archipelago which is included in it, but they do not go 

 farther eastward than the Solomon Islands. They seem to be a 

 very natural group of the Order Fsittaci (Parrot), and some writers 

 would regard them as forming a Family Cacatiddie or Plictohphidas, 

 while others consider the lower rank of a subfamily sufficient for 

 them. Six genera are pretty generally admitted, Cacatua, C'allo- 

 cephalon, Calopsitiacus (Cockateel), Calyptwhynchus, Licmetis, and 

 Microglossa — the first containing all the species ordinarily called 

 Cockatoos and kept in confinement, which are commonly white with 

 yellow, or pink crests. The second genus has only one species, an 

 iron-grey bird with a bright red head. The fourth contains the large 

 black species of Australia, with a long tail banded with scarlet, 

 yellow or cream-colour. The fifth has a considerable resemblance 

 to the first, but the birds have a slender bill, while the sixth com- 

 prises the largest forms to be found in the Order, birds whose 

 wholly black plimiage is relieved by their bare cheeks of bright red. 

 In striking contrast to these last some systematists would place 

 among the Cockatoos the smallest of the Parrot-tribe, members of 

 the genus Nasiterna, from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, 

 but that as Dr. Murie has shewn {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1865, p. 622), 

 really presents no sort of resemblance to them. 



' COCK-OF-THE-PLAINS, one of the American Tetraonidss 

 (Grouse), Centrocercus urophasianus. 



COCK-OF-THE-ROCK, a " familiar name," according to Swain- 

 son in 1837 (Classif. B. ii. p. 76), "long bestowed" on a bird from 

 the northern parts of South America ; but his seems to be the first 

 rendering into English of the old French Coq-de-roche, or Coc-des-roches 

 as Barrere (Fr. Equinox, p. 132) has it. The flat-sided crest borne 

 by the bird was likened by the colonists to that of the Hoopoe, and 

 accordingly he in 1745 (Ornithol. p. 46) placed it in the genus 

 Upupa, while Edwards a few years after figured its head 

 {Gleanings, pi. 264) as that of the "Hoopoe Hen," having received 

 it from Surinam under the name of Widdehop (Hoopoe), and thus 

 Linni3eus was oi'iginally induced to follow their example, though 

 finally he referred it to the genus Pipra (Manakin) ; but in the 

 meanwhile Brisson, who first gave a good description and figure of 

 it, made it in 1760 the representative of a new genus Pupicola. In 

 1769 Vosmaer again figured it, expressing his surprise that the 



