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 maldng up a flock of 

 seven with the two firstborUc 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 soup(;on of contempt. 

 There is, moreover, strongly marked individual character among 

 them. No two of them behave exactly in the same manner. I think 



