on Cuckoos and Parrots of New South Wales 261


destructive in orchards, especially the Musk Lorikeet. In January

and February, 1896, these birds amounted to a plague in country

districts, and numbers were killed in fruit-trees with sticks and

stones. The Sulphur-crested Cockatoo ( Cacatua galerita ) is familiar

to most bird-lovers in Europe and Britain, as well as in Australia

and Tasmania, for it is in great request as a cage-bird or pet. It is

a remarkably good talker, but is noisy, and, when semi-domesticated,

very destructive to all kinds of woodwork when allowed its freedom ;

in a wild state, in common with the Rose-breasted Cockatoo (C. rosei-

capilla ) and many other species of the Order, it commits great havoc

in grain crops. Except in the extreme portions of the western and

coastal districts, it is generally distributed over the State, as it is at

all times wary and difficult to approach. Precisely the reverse is the

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo ( Calyptorhynchus funereus ), somewhat

sparingly distributed in pairs over eastern and central New South

Wales. At Middle Harbour, near Sydney, I have known this species

to be shot in low Banksias. Banks’s Black Cockatoo ( C. banksi) is

found in the coastal districts, but not anywhere in the neighbourhood

of the Metropolis; also along the course of the Darling River in

north-western New South Wales. Solander’s Black Cockatoo

( C. viridis ) used at one time to frequent the neighbourhood of

Botany, but, of recent years, Port Hacking is the nearest locality to

the Metropolis in which I have known this species to be procured.

It is distributed throughout the greater portion of the coastal districts

and central New South Wales. Black Cockatoos feed largely upon

seeds and kernels extracted from Banksia and Casuarina cones, also

upon the wood-boring larvte of insects. The Red-crested Gang-gang

Cockatoo ( Callocephalon galeatum), an inhabitant of the coastal dis¬

tricts and contiguous mountain ranges, is one of the rarest of cage-

birds usually seen in this Order. The Crimson-shouldered Parrot

(Aprosmictus erythropterus), inhabiting northern New South Wales,

and the King Parrot ( A. cyanopygius), distributed throughout the

greater part of eastern New South Wales, are also worthy of notice.



