GREAT BLACK COCKATOO 273 



{Canarium commune) is unknown. In another point 

 also, I must differ from Dr Wallace. He says that the 

 bird is easily killed. Really it will carry as much shot 

 as a swan. In Australia its food consists of leaves, buds, 

 blossoms, and all the fruits and nuts of the northern 

 region, including the kernels of the bunya-pine cone ; 

 and I have seen them searching the rough wrinkles of 

 the bark of trees in search of the larva, etc., of various 

 beetles, and other insects. The slender-billed cockatoo 

 has the same habit, and as its beak is very long, and 

 terminates in a sharp point, like that of the large black 

 cockatoo, it seems likely that the beak has acquired its 

 peculiar shape in both cases from the particular habits of 

 the bird. 



The great black cockatoo breeds, like all others of the 

 genus, in the hollows of trees, always in the seclusion of 

 a forest or large wood, and always at a considerable height 

 from the ground. The eggs, which are two in number, 

 are of the typical parrot shape, and quite as large as those 

 of a hen. I have never found the young birds. In May 

 and June most of the parrots and cockatoos in the 

 Mitchell's River district were just beginning to breed. 

 Many nests had eggs in them ; but all these were freshly 

 laid. I use the word nests advisedly, for while Australian 

 parrots are not strictly nest-makers, most of them make 

 some slight preparation in the nesting-hole. In the case 

 of the great black cockatoo, there is a quantity of the dust 

 of decayed wood spread at the bottom of the hollow, 

 which is usually six or seven inches deep, the bird having 

 scraped it down from the sides of the hole in which the 

 eggs are laid, and this to some extent is plastered together 

 with the excrement of the young or old cockatoos, who 

 appear to use the same hole year after year. 



The slender-billed cockatoo often places a layer of dry 

 leaves in the breeding place, and in other cases (I am not 

 sure of the species), I have found a little grass under the 

 eggs of a cockatoo. 



I must notice one more highly characteristic bird of 

 the north Australian fauna — that is the cassowary. Though 



S 



