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Thornton Skinner — Cockatoo-catching in Victoria



were at that time in Echuca, a northerly town of Victoria, where a fine

bridge crosses the Murray into New South Wales. The equipment

needed was a pair of good horses and a large buggy, a calico tent, and

nets ; we also carried a gun apiece, only used for necessary food,

Duck especially. The country here is very flat, and is called Riverina.

Grain is grown by the free selector, and the birds come to the fields in

huge mobs to feed. Our plan was to camp in likely places and watch

their habits, note where they fed and drank, and then lay out our

nets. These were of the folding type, and covered an area of 16 feet

by 30 feet. Concealed in a small trench, they snapped together at

a great pace, which we controlled by watching from a “ mla-mia ”,

or black fellows hut, made of green boughs over a firm structure, all

cut on the spot. The nets had to be laid before sunrise, so that we were

not seen on the spot to frighten the birds. At the commencement

of our time we caught Galahs, a lovely bird of pink and dove-grey ;

they were in small groups of eight or ten, and sometimes only a pair,

and were generally very common. Later we fell in with a mob of

Cornilla Cockatoos, which we estimated at about 10,000, and came

regularly just after sunrise. We had only two pulls of our nets at

this lot, and totalled 150. We were about fourteen days in this camp,

a lovely spot beside a dam. The slight valley had been scooped out

and the scoopings heaped on the lower end to make this dam, which

covered about an acre. The day we happened to catch was one of

very hard work, with seventy-five Cockatoos in the nets ; one had to be

careful in extricating them, the net would be hidden in their feathers

and they were hopelessly entangled, so our best plan was to use a knife

and free them as quickly as possible. Occasionally one would bite

another, but this was the only loss we sustained ; our hands got bitten

also, but not so much when we learnt how to handle the birds ; the

noise and commotion just after a catch was an incident not to be

forgotten. It was generally past midday by the time we had finished

and could get some breakfast. We were most careful of the birds,

and put them in boxes with wire fronts not too thick, as the heat is

more likely to kill than fright. The whole Cockatoo community is

invisible in the middle of the day, camping, when the sun is hottest,

in the shade of large trees. We found all Australian birds and



