27 



^LENDER-glLLED ^OCKATOO. ■ 



Psittacus nasica, Russ. 



Synonyms: Psittacus nasicus, Plyctolophus tenuirostris, Cacatua nasica, 



Licmetis tenuirostris, Licmetis nasicus, etc. German : Per Nasenkahadu. 



IT is certainly a bad plan to allow oneself to be prejudiced by another 

 person against anything of which one has no personal knowledge, 

 and this we admit to have been our case with regard to the Slender- 

 billed Cockatoo, of which Mr. Gedney wrote: "I confess to a feeling 

 of dislike towards these birds, which nothing can overcome, not that 

 I object to long-nosed creatures as a rule, for nature has been some- 

 what liberal to me in the matter of nose : but these Cockatoos are morose 

 and spiteful in disposition, querulous, excitable, and uneasy in their 

 manners when kept as cage pets, and strongly addicted to shrieking 

 at all seasons." 



So strong was our prejudice against this Cockatoo, engendered solely 

 by a perusal of the above quoted remarks, that for a long time we 

 refused to believe that anything good could be said of or for it: but 

 we were mistaken, as we shall presently make it appear: not that we 

 doubt Mr. Gedney' s account of the individuals of the species that 

 chanced to come into his possession, but, as in our own experience 

 with the Rosy Cockatoo, his birds were probably unfortunate specimens 

 of their race, and by no means to be considered as typical thereof. 



Like the Rosy one, the Slender-billed has very little real claim to 

 be called a Cockatoo, for he has no crest to speak of, but as he also 

 has the power to raise the short head feathers, he has been placed in 

 that branch of the Parrot family, which the older naturalists distinguished 

 by the generic name Plyctolophus ; although as the reader of the list 

 of synonyms placed at the head of this article will have doubtless noticed, 

 these short-crested Cockatoos have been constituted a genus by them- 

 selves, and received the name of Licmetis from Wagler, Gray, and 

 others; but to our notion Dr. Russ's plan of placing all the members 



