CALLOCEPHaLON. 



75 



any part of Queensland, or even the Northern Districts of New South Wales. Although no 

 longer to be found close to Sydney, specimens are sometimes received from Smithfield, Liverpool, 

 Appin and I'icton, and these birds are freely distributed throughout the heavily timbered 

 districts on the southern parts of the National I'ark, Moss \ale, liundanoon, and the Burra- 

 gorang \ alley, the J-Jlue Mountains and throughout the Illawarra District into South-eastern 



X'ictoria. In the latter State I have met with it in 

 different parts of the Strzelecki Range, in South Gipps- 

 land, and have seen specimens obtained near Fernshaw. 

 Mr. Edwin .\shby also informs me he met with it near 

 Lome, in the Cape (Jtway Kanges. In iSyy these birds 

 weie unusually numerous in New South Wales, and 

 several were received from the Southern Coastal Dis- 

 trict and contiguous mountain ranges of the eastern 

 parts of the State. At Boloco Station, near the \'ictorian 

 border, Mr. .\. M. N. Rose informed me he saw 

 over forty birds of this species in one tree. Stomachs 

 of birds I liave examined contained only the small seeds 

 of a Eucalyptus. There is very little variation in the 

 wing-measurement of adult specmiens, that of the female 

 being slightly greater than that of the male. The wing- 

 measurement of the adult male given in the " Catalogue 

 of ISirds in the British Museum," ■ is clearly a typo- 

 graphical error. 



At Childers, in South Gippsland, \'ictoria, I once 

 saw a nesting-place occupied by a pair of these birds, 

 and watched them go in and out of it. In this instance 

 it was quite safe, for it was in a hole in a thick green 

 upright bouyh of a lofty and wide spreading smooth-barked Eucalyptus, and fully se\enty feet 

 from the ground. 



Their note is a winning, squeaking call, and is about the weakest of any of the Cai atuid.^-:. 

 Mr. Robert Grant, Taxidermist of the .\ustralian JNIuseum, has handed me the following 

 notes : — " I have shot Gang Gangs all over the ranges around Lithgow on the Blue Mountains, 

 New South Wales, but particularly at Mariangaroo, Badger Brush, and Sodwalls. In the 

 spring the adults are usually met with in pairs, and in summer are more often seen accompanied 

 by their young. In the autumn and winter months they congregate in flocks from ten to 

 twenty or thirty in number. On one occasion my brother and I shot eighteen from one tree, 

 which were attracted by the cries of two of their wounded mates, lying on the ground. These 

 birds can inflict a nasty bite. A wounded female I attempted to pick up fastened on to my right 

 thumb, the top of which it nearly bit through. On Bell's Line, near the Old Bathurst Road, 

 Clarence Siding, we took nearly a day to chop down a Gum tree in which a pair of these birds 

 were nesting, but failed to discover either eggs or young." 



From Marrickville, Sydney, New South Wales, Mr. Percy Peir sends the following 

 notes: — " I have kept quite a number of the Gang Gang Cockatoos (CaUxcplialon galeatum) at 

 various periods, and found that although usually of a morose disposition they are easily tamed, 

 and become great favourites. If kept in company with other talking birds they soon learn to 

 imitate them. With the majority of bird fanciers, and e\en at our local Zoological Gardens, 

 they are short lived, although 1 have found them one of the hardiest of the Australian Cockatoos 

 if catered for properly at the commencement. The Gang Gang is a peculiar bird regarding its 



• Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XX., p. 114 (1891). 



(iANC tiANO COCKATOO. 



