THE COCKATOO 413 



or gaudy colours, such as the Lories, which owe their name to 

 the frequency with which they repeat this word, while the 

 American species are generally green. The Indians have, 

 however, found out an ingenious method 

 to adorn or illustrate, as it were, the 

 plumage of the Amazonian parrot {Psit- 

 tacus Amazonicus), which is in great re- 

 quest, from its being easily tamed, and 

 learning to speak with facility. They take 

 a young bird from its nest, pluck the 

 feathers from its back and shoulders, and 



Lory. 



then rub the naked parts with the blood 

 of a small species of frog. The feathers which grow again 

 after this operation are no longer green, but yellow, or of 

 a bright red colour. Many birds die in consequence of 

 ])eing plucked, and thus these metamorphosed parrots are 

 extremely rare, notwithstanding the high prices which the 

 ravages obtain for them. Azara, in his work on South America, 

 relates that the Indians of the warm regions of Paraguay 

 Kometimes sell to the Europeans completely yellow parrots with 

 the exception of the few parts that were originally blue and red, 

 and in which that colour is said to be substituted for green 

 l)y means of arnatto. The parrots whose plumage has thus 

 lieen artificially changed are ever after silent, melancholy, and 

 of very weak health. By what chance may the Indians have 

 hit upon this strange industry, worthy of the refined arts of 

 our own dealers in natural curiosities ? 



The Cockatoos are distinguished from the other parrots by a 

 crest or tuft of elegant feathers on the head, which they can 

 raise and depress at pleasure. They inhabit the East Indies 

 and Australia, and have generally a white or roseate plumage. 

 Their chief resorts are dense and humid forests, and they fre- 

 quently cause great devastations in the rice plantations, often 

 pouncing to the number of six or eight hundred upon a single 

 field, and destroying even more than they devour, as they seem 

 to be possessed of the mania to break and tear everything their 

 beak can lay hold of. They walk less awkwardly than most 

 other parrots. 



The great white cockatoo {Cacatua Gristata)^ who is able 

 to erect his beautiful yellow crest to the height of five inches. 



