462 



The Cuckoo-like Birds 



often of great size, and frequenting for the most part the tops of the highest forest 

 trees or occasionally sailing to an immense height in the cloudless tropical sky. 

 They are mostly vegetarians, feeding on nuts, seeds, grain, bulbs, and roots, varied 

 with occasional insects or their larvas. Their eggs are deposited in holes in 

 trees or in the crevices of rocky cliffs. Their handsome plumage, so well set off 

 by the large, often bright-colored crests, and their engaging manners have long 

 made them favorites as household pets and for the aviary, though their linguistic 

 ability is rather limited,, being confined in the main to the imitation of various 

 domestic animals, such as the dog and cat, as well as domestic fowls; occasion- 

 ally, however, they are excellent talkers. The chief drawback to keeping 



them as pets is their discordant screaming, 

 though some species are worse in this respect 

 than others. 



Great Black Cockatoo. We may appro- 

 priately begin the consideration of the group 

 with the Great Black or Palm Cockatoo 

 (Microglossus aterrimus] of North Australia 

 and Papuan Islands, which is distinguished 

 at once from all the other members of the 

 subfamily by having the cheeks entirely 

 naked. The most striking characteristic of 

 this species is the enormously large and 

 powerful bill with almost needle-like point. 

 It is also the largest of the group, attaining 

 a length of twenty-eight to thirty-two inches, 

 of which about ten inches is made up by the 

 tail. The crest, composed of narrow feath- 

 ers, is very long, and the plumage is slaty 

 black, powdered with gray, becoming deep 

 velvety black on the head and lores, while 

 the naked cheeks are pale red bordered by 

 pale yellow. The female is similar but 

 smaller than the male, and the young birds exhibit a series of narrow yellowish 

 bands on the abdomen, under wing-coverts, and lower tail-coverts. The 

 tongue is a surprisingly slender and worm-like organ. This species is not so 

 gregarious as many of the others, being observed singly or in twos or threes, 

 and frequenting the dense forests, where it keeps mostly to the tops of the 

 loftiest trees. Its flight is described as slow and noiseless and not extended 

 for any great distance. Mr. Macgillivray ventured the opinion that the power- 

 ful beak was employed in stripping away the leaves near the summits of palm 

 trees to enable it to arrive at the tender central shoot, but Mr. Alfred Russel 

 Wallace found them feeding almost exclusively on the kernel of the kanari-nut, 

 the fruit of a lofty forest tree (Canarium commune) growing in the Moluccas and 

 elsewhere. This nut, which is triangular in shape and very smooth, has 

 such an exceedingly hard shell that it requires a heavy hammer to crack it, yet 



FlG. 147. Great Black Cockatoo, Mi- 

 croglossus aterrimus. 



