382 Miscellaneous. 
nearly fledged, one of the cockatoos thought it right to murder him. 
The year after, the same pair brought up two children, and it was 
really a beautiful sight to see the family party flying about, always 
together, and living on the most loving terms; but the mother and 
her eldest son both, unhappily, were shot. Afterwards one of the 
common white cockatoos and the hen Leadbeater (a very large rose- 
coloured cockatoo) dug out their own nest in the rotten branch of an 
acacia tree, laid two eggs, and brought up the young birds. These 
hybrids are very handsome, but do not resemble either of the 
parents, having beautiful crests of a red-orange-colour. Other- 
wise they are perfectly white. The parent birds were so pleased 
with the success of this experiment that last year they repeated 
it, and brought up three young ones, thus making up a flock of 
seven with the two firstborn. Unluckily one of them was shot at 
in the winter, and came home severely wounded ; after which the 
other birds would not permit him to associate with them, and he 
always lived in a bush near the house, quite apart from the rest. 
One day I moved him into the garden, upon which some of the 
other cockatoos (not, however, his own relations) fell upon him the 
moment my back was turned, and killed him—one of those traits of 
character which, as I said just now, these birds, and, in fact, most 
wild animals, share with human nature in their general dislike of 
cripples. Another of them was also injured ; so I took him away to 
Surrey, where, in spite of his broken wing and broken leg, an old 
cockatoo befriended him, and treats him as her own son. This 
year we hoped that the same pair would nest again; but un- 
luckily, a pair of grey parrots anticipated them in the possession 
of the hollow branch, and, having made a nest in it, brought up two 
young grey parrots, and which are afflicted with awful tempers. 
The maternal instinct of another pair of grey parrots took a very 
absurd form this year. A cat made her lodging in one of the nest- 
boxes, and brought up her kittens in it, and two of the grey parrots, 
who had not been industrious enough to lay eggs and have a family 
of their own, were seized with the idea that these kittens were their 
children. They kept up a constant warfare with the old cat; and 
whenever she left the box, one of them used to get in and sit with 
the kittens, and they were constantly in close attendance, even when 
the mother cat was at home. When the cockatoos I have spoken of 
had their nest in the acacia tree, it was very ridiculous to see the 
extravagant interest taken in the matter by the others of the same 
species. They used to sit most of the day on the branches, just 
above the nest, and whenever the parent bird flew out, she was 
attended by a troop of the others, screaming horrible acclamations 
in her honour. There is an immense deal of originality about this 
race of birds. They have none of the common-place humdrum me- 
diocrity of birds in general. Their curiosity is unbounded, and they 
evidently look on man and his doings with the keenest interest, 
mingled with surprise, and with, perhaps, just a sowpgon of contempt. 
There is, moreover, strongly marked individual character among 
them. No two of them behave exactly in the same manner. I think 
