214 Catching Sulphur- Crested Cockatoos.


most birds is that, if it once fell out of the nest it would have no

chance of getting back. A young Magpie and Crow, for example,

can try little flights from the nest amongst the slender branches

in which it is always built. But the young Cockatoo finds nothing

between the edge of his nest and the cold ground. So he waits

until his wings are well grown, and even then he sits on the edge

of the nest a long while ; and it takes a lot of coaxing from his

parents to make him fly. At last, when he does fly, he goes

straight off to a neighbouring tree. I usually put the young birds

inside my shirt front and brought them down with me; but

sometimes I have thrown them gently into the air and let them

flutter to the ground. One has to be very careful, however, to

see they are not too well feathered. Once I tossed a young one

into the air, and it flew straight off. It had got such a fright

that it never thought of alighting on a neighbouring tree, but

continued flying as long as my astonished eyes could follow it.

In descending the tree one has to be pretty careful. As I come

down I have to knock out the spikes and let them fall to the

ground ; and occasionally, in bearing too heavily on a spike while

knocking out another, I have felt it beginning to give way. But,

with care, there need be no accident. In leaving the birds in the

nests as long as possible, there is always a danger of losing some.

I have been exasperated sometimes when halfway up a tree, to

see the young birds first appear on the edge of the hole — alarmed

by the hammer — and then, as I got closer, finally spring into the

air in a first trial of their wings and fly off. About the end of

November the young ones are nearly all flying, and all over the

Cockatoo country you can see little groups of three and four

birds, parents and young, perched in the leafy top of a tall

eucalyptus, or feeding on the seeds of dry wild grass, or rooting

up the wild geranium. By January the last laggards have left

their nests, and towards the end of the month the birds begin to

muster into flocks again. Then you will see huge flocks of snow-

white Cockatoos circling overhead, and you will hear them also,

for their screams are deafening. One of the prettiest sights is a

flight of Cockatoos alighting on a newly-ploughed field. They

make such elegant and continuous evolutions before they come

down that even the fanner whose seed oats they are after cannot

help admiring them.



