Mar.,"j Keartland, Specific Name ofCacatua sanguinea. 159 



a few old birds with the white skin. Gould based his name 

 on a few dried specimens, and, of course, the skin would be 

 dark in that case. Although he is silent on the colour of the 

 skin in his " Handbook," he shows it as white in the coloured 

 plates of his larger work. Dr. Sclater described C. gymnopis 

 from a living bird, giving its habitat as South Australia. He 

 also examined a number of skins of this species obtained by 

 the late Captain Charles Sturt, and refers them to C. gymnopis. 



In view of these varied opinions, I now place my experience 

 of these birds before the members of the Field Naturalists' 

 Club. Whilst on a visit to Adelaide, in 1892, I purchased a 

 pair of Blood-stained Cockatoos from a dealer, who had over 

 fifty of them in his cages, all of which had the blue skin round 

 the eye. Some of the birds were larger than others. The 

 skin of the largest of those I bought is now in the Melbourne 

 Museum ; the other died whilst I was away from home. In 

 1900 I saw a bird-catcher at Spencer-street station with about 

 150 young birds, which he had brought from Broken Hill. I 

 secured four of them — two for myself and two for friends. 

 One of those I kept had white skin on its face, although too 

 young to feed itself. In the others it was blue. I gave the 

 one with the white skin to my daughter on her removal to 

 Beechworth about thirteen years ago, and last October she 

 returned it to me. I am exhibiting it to-night, alive and in good 

 health, and it will be noticed that, instead of the face being 

 white, it has now changed to blue. Another point worthy of 

 note is that the fluff on the base of the feathers of the young 

 birds is red, but becomes paler as the birds get older. 



During the stay at the junction of the Fitzroy and Margaret 

 Rivers, in North-West Australia, of the Calvert Exploring 

 Expedition (January, 1897), I saw thousands of Blood-stained 

 Cockatoos, many of which were shot for the cook. One evening 

 four large trees near our camp were white with these birds, as 

 if covered with a mantle of snow. When they rose from the 

 trees on my approach I fired two shots into the flock and 

 brought down ten birds, some of which were larger than others, 

 and two had white skin round the eyes, but in all the rest it 

 was blue. Now, if this is not conclusive evidence in support 

 of the one species theory, I will be glad to learn from those who 

 differ from me where the birds with the white skin on their 

 faces may be found in flocks without the intrusion of C. 

 gym-nopis. 



Of course, it is well known that in some instances birds of 

 one species may be seen mingling in a flock of another, but 

 that is not at breeding time. For instance. I have shot a 

 solitary Black Duck. Anas supercUiosa, out of a flock of Teal, 

 Nettion gibberifrons . For several days a Radjah Shieldrake, 

 Tadorna radjah, remained on a swamp near our camp in a 



