The Cockatoo. 303 



tiful crest, composed of a tuft of elegant feathers, which 

 he can raise or depress at pleasure. We meet with some 

 of a beautiful white plumage, and the inside feathers 

 of the crest of a pleasing yellow, with a spot of the 

 same colour under each eye, and one upon the breast. 

 The Cockatoos are natives of the Indian Islands and 

 Australia, where they are found in great abundance. 

 Their food consists of seeds and soft and stony fruits, 

 which last their powerful bill enables them to break 

 with ease. They are easily tamed when taken at an 

 early age, after which they become familiar and even 

 attached, but their imitative powers seldom go beyond 

 a very few words added to their own cry of Cockatoo. 



In a wild state they are shy, and cannot easily be 

 approached. The flesh of the young birds is accounted 

 very good eating. The female is said to make her nest 

 in the rotten limbs of trees, using nothing more than the 

 accumulation of vegetable mould formed by the decayed 

 parts of the bough. The eggs are white, without spots ; 

 there are no more than two young at a time. The 

 natives first find the nest by the pieces of bark and 

 twigs which the old birds strip off the trees adjoining 

 that in which the nest is situated. It is a remarkable 

 fact that the bark is never stripped off the tree which 

 contains the nest. 



Mr. Bennet, in speaking of the large black Cockatoo 

 of New Holland, says, that if this bird observes on 

 the trunk of a tree indications of a larva being within, 

 it diligently labours to get at it with its powerful 

 beak, and should the object of its pursuit be deep within 

 the wood, as often happens, the trunk becomes so ex- 

 tensively hacked, that a slight gust of wind will lay 

 the tree prostrate. 



