ACROSS THE PLAINS 175 



the bird to Mrs. Bennett, who had it in her possession 

 for over twenty years. The captain, then a young 

 apprentice, first met "Cocky Bennett" on a sailing 

 vessel in the Pacific. The bird was owned by the 

 skipper, and was said to be about the same age as 

 the apprentice, who ultimately became captain of 

 the ship. "Cocky Bennett," during his declining 

 years, had few feathers to hide a shrivelled skin, and 

 the crest was represented by two yellow plumes. The 

 upper portion of the beak was of abnormal length; it 

 grew rapidly, and pieces had to be cut off from time 

 to time. The ancient bird was a celebrity, and de- 

 lighted numbers of visitors with quaint remarks, a 

 favourite sentence being, "I'll fly, I'll fly I'll fly." 



We reached a boundary rider's hut at sunset, and 

 stayed there for the night. Before starting again 

 in the morning, we strolled through a timbered pad- 

 dock, where a small flock of Crested-Pigeons 

 [Ocyphaps lophotes] was seen. Several nests were 

 discovered, but in each case the brood had flown. At 

 one farm, which we visited on this trip, Crested- 

 Pigeons were so tame that they fed daily among the 

 fowls, taking their share of the grain. 



By noon we were among the gum trees on Yanco 

 Creek, and shade was very welcome after the sun- 

 glare on the plains. The afternoon was devoted to 

 camera craft, many of our pictures being obtained 

 from the flattie. Every dead tree in the creek and 

 there were hundreds within view of the camping 

 place was worth inspection. My companion, as we 

 paddled along slowly, pointed out the most interesting 

 hollows. The nursery of a pair of Black-cheeked 

 Falcons [Falco melanogenys'], in which a brood had 

 been reared each season for some years, was nearly 

 forty feet above the water; while two happy "Moun- 

 tain Ducks" [C. tadornoides] had tenanted a hollow, 

 which was easily examined from the flattie. Galahs' 

 nesting holes were both high and low, in boles and 



