ROSE-BREASTED COCKATOO. 25 



where they wheel round and round in untiring gyrations, safe from 

 the attacks of every foe. 



Capture the Eosy Cockatoo, however, take him from the maternal 

 nest, even, in his babyhood, and bring him up by hand, what then? 

 Well, he is out of place in your cage, or in your aviary, and he knows 

 and feels it, and even when most tame, the mal du pays takes strong 

 hold of it at times, and he his a,pt to bite, and to scream his loudest 

 and most implacable scream as a protest against his thraldom: the 

 chains may be gilded, it is true, but are they not chains all the same ? 

 and is it not cruel, not only to deprive him of his freedom, but to 

 take him, by main force, and carry him away captive into a cold and 

 sunless land, where gum-trees languish, and mimosas fade, and the 

 tree-ferns droop their feathery fronds and die? 



The Eosy Cockatoos are gregarious birds, assembling in small flocks, 

 however, compared to those formed by their relations, the Great White- 

 crested fellows that love to soar, far beyond the reach of unaided human 

 sight, in the broad expanse of ethereal blue, bathed in the light of 

 an Australian noon, when the air quivers as one may see it do over 

 the mouth of a furnace, and the fiery rays of the sun pour down un- 

 dimmed by a single fleecy cloud; then the rosy one seeks the shade 

 of the forest, and dozes among the tops of the trees, apparently fearful 

 lest the strong heat and vivid sunshine should fade the glory of his 

 rosy vest, or may be blanch his lavender-coloured coat; for he is a 

 great dandy, and never weary of preening and dressing his plumes, 

 which in a cage look so often rough and untidy, as if the poor bird 

 with liberty, had lost heart, and personal pride, and cared only to pour 

 forth the story of his woes and wrongs in the most ear-piercing strains. 



With the exception of the Leadb eater there is no bird with which 

 we are acquainted that "plays" so earnestly, or so gracefully as the 

 Eosy Cockatoo; he is quite a gymnast too, and the way in which he 

 swings himself round and round on his perch, with expanded wings 

 and tail, is no less amusing than interesting: the love-making again 

 of a pair of RoseiccvpilM is a sight to be seen: what a series of bows 

 and capers, what tender, self-contained warbling! to hear him "coo" 

 to his lady-love, you would never suppose him to be the pink fiend 

 whose piercing shrieks but just now drove you from his presence with 

 your fingers in your ears: but he is: when he is teased he screams, 

 when he is angry he screams, when he is hungry or thirsty he shrieks 

 but when he is jealous he yells like a demon — or as demons are sup- 

 posed to yell — but when he has got what he wants, and is in a good 

 humour, his "warbling", if loud, is not at all disagreeable, but that is 

 so seldom, that, taught by experience, we prefer, on the whole, his room 



