CALYPIOKUVXCIIUS. 



59 



weak but harsh and discordant cries, which may, nevertheless be heard a long distance away. 

 Their notes, when once heard, are not easily mistaken for any other species. These birds breed 

 about Middle Harbour, for in August, lyoS, I saw a pair attending to the wants of a 

 young one. L'suaily they are shy and wary, and difficult of approach, but occasionally I 

 have without any difficulty walked beneath the tree on which they were perched. This species 

 I found more common on the Hawkesbury Kiver and higlier parts of the Blue Mountains; it 

 may also be met with in the timbered portions of the National I'ark. 



'I'he foregoing description is taken from a Ime old pair of birds, procured by Mr. J. A. Boyd 

 at Moss \'ale. New South Wales, in March, iSjij. About the only variation I can find in the 

 adult plumage of botli sexes, collected in different localities, is in the under tail-coverts. Some 

 specimens have these entirely bluish-blaclc, others have the basal portion of the under tail-coverts 

 often of one web only, centred with yellow, and which may be again mottled with brownish- 

 black. Of abnormally plumaged individuals, there is a remarkable instance of xanthrochroism in 

 Cdhf/orhviuluis fnih-mis in the Exhibit Collection presented by Mr. G. M. Pitt, and obtained by 

 him at Wiseman's I'^erry, on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales. This specimen differs 

 from the typical form in having the upper and under sui face, upper and under wmg-coverts, 

 scapulars, innermost secondaries, and under tail-coverts yellow, with which are intermingled a 

 number of the usual brownish-black feathers, giving it a decidedly mottled appearance, and a 

 strikingly contrasted plumage. 



'J'he food of this species consists principally of seeds of the fjiiiihsia, Casiianna and Ilahca, 

 and large white wood horny grubs found m Ining luicalypts, which it strips and cuts away 

 with its powerful l)ill, and more often wlien the grub has eaten its way into a sapling. Probably 

 bv tapping the bird detects the distance down the limb the grub has bored, for it is generally 

 about eight inches below the hole where it has entered the branch that the bird commences to 

 tear away the bark and bite away the wood in its search for the grub, and it may be another 

 foot before it finally obtains it. In the Australian Museum Collection there is exhibited a 

 portion of a Eucalyptus sapling showing the method employed by this species to olitain wood- 

 boring larva.'. The sapling was almost se\ered by the bird's powerful mandibles, and a number 

 of chips, some of them six inches in length by one and a (juarter inch in breadth, and a ijuarter 

 of an inch thick, were found at the base of the sapling. This was one of a number more or less 

 similarly treated at Lawson, on the lilue Mountains, New South Wales. I'rior to its receipt from 

 Mr. E. G. W. Palmer, who exhibited it at a meetinj; of the Linnean Society of New South 

 Wales, the President, the late IV. |ames Norton, M.L.C., remarked that in his grounds at 

 Springwood, on the Blue Mountams, the Black Cockatoos had succeeded in ring-barking 

 some of tlie Manna Gums, one foot in diameter, in pursuit of boring grubs. 



Relative to this species living in confinement, Mr. A. A. Brett, of Kogarah, near Sydney, 

 brought me a specimen for examination that had died on the 25th December, 1907. He informed 

 me it was taken precisely to date two years before, by his son, from a nesting-place in a 

 Belar tree (Ciisiianim, sp. J near Cunnamulla, in South-western Queensland, and that while he 

 had it in confinement it was \ery tame and aftectionate, and could distinctly say " halloo " and 

 other monosyllabic expressions. A fully adult live bird brought to me for identification, I 

 afterwards heard was taken by its owner to Europe, and arrived ali\e and well. 



The following information I recei\ed at various times from the late 'Sh. George Barnard, of 

 Coomooboolaroo, iJuaringa, Dawson 1-fiver. Queensland : — " On the 2nd June, 1884, my sons 

 found a nest of Cah'ptorhvnchns fiuii-rcus, containing two eggs. The nesting-place was in the 

 hollow bough of a tall I^ucalyptus. About this time last year we got a young bird, which is 

 still alive and very tame. On the 8th June, iSgo, they found another ; unfortunately the eggs 

 were just hatching, one young one just out, and one egg chippeil ; thout;h we knew they 

 bred in June, we did not think they would be so early. On the 12th June, 1891, my sons found 



