TNSESSOUES. 11 



Sp. 395. LICMETIS TENUIROSTRIS. 



Long-billed Cockatoo. 



Psittacus nasicus, Temru. in Linn. Trans., vol. xiii. p. 115. 



Long-nosed Cockatoo, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. ii. p. 205. 



Licmetis tenuirostris, Wagl. Mon. Psitt. in Abhand., vol. i. pp. 505 



and 695. 

 Psittacus tenuirostris, Kuhl in Nov. Acta, torn. x. p. 88. 

 Cacatua nasica, Less. Traite d'Orn., p. 183. 

 Plyctolophus tenuirostris, Steph. Cont. of Shaw's Gen. Zool., vol. xiv. 



p. 108. 

 Kakadoe tenuirostris, Bourj. de St.-Hil. Perr., tab. 76. 

 The Red-vented Cockatoo, Brown's III, p. 10, pi. 5. 



Licmetis nasicus, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. v. pi. 5. 



The habitat of the present species would appear to be 

 confined to Victoria and South Australia, where it inhabits 

 the interior rather than the neighbourhood of the coast. 

 Like the Cacatua galerita, it assembles in large flocks and 

 spends much of its time on the ground, where it grubs 

 up the roots of Orchids and other bulbous plants upon 

 which it mainly subsists, and hence the necessity for its 

 singularly formed bill. It not unfrequently invades the 

 newly sown fields of corn, where it is the most destructive 

 bnd imaginable. It passes over the ground in a succession 

 of hops, much more quickly than the Cacatua galerita ; its 

 powers of flight also exceed those of that bird, not perhaps in 

 duration, but in the rapidity with which it passes through the 

 air. I noticed this particularly when a flock passed me in 

 the interior of South Australia. I have seen many individuals 

 of this species in captivity, both in New South Wales and in 

 this country ; and although they appear to bear confinement 

 equally well with the other members of the family, they 

 seemed more dull and morose, and of a very irritable temper. 



The eggs, which are white, two in number, and about the 

 size of those of the Cacatua galerita^ are usually deposited on 



