8 GREAT WHITE-CRESTED COCKATOO. 



pair, of a dull orange red, otherwise the birds are exactly similar in 

 size and appearance, and are exceedingly handsome to look at, but 

 awfully noisy: their shrieks being audible, on a calm day, at an immense 

 distance, so much so that when they are flying so high up in the air 

 as to be actually invisible to the unassisted eye, their voices can yet 

 be distinctly heard, somewhat modified and mellowed by distance, it is 

 true, but far too loud, even then, to be agreeable. Their ordinary cry 

 is a repetition of their own name, " Cock-a-too, Oock-a-too ! " and a 

 yell that is best represented by the syllables " Our-rah ! " much emphasis 

 being laid upon the latter, which is terrifically loud, and when angry 

 or excited they vociferate these discordant notes an almost unlimited 

 number of times. 



Occasionally one of these birds will learn to pronounce a few words 

 with tolerable distinctness, but their forte lies in the imitation of the 

 barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, the "gobbling" of turkeys, and 

 the cackling of ducks, hens, and geese: but more particularly in the 

 rendering, with much fidelity, but in an exaggerated key, the noisy 

 outcries of a domestic fowl that has just produced an egg, and is vain- 

 gloriously proclaiming the achievement to her companions. They may 

 be readily taught to throw up their wings, dance on their perch, hold 

 out a foot to shake hands, and bow their heads in salutation of a visitor. 



There is no perceptible difference between the sexes, except in the 

 colour of the irides, but the female, perhaps, is a trifle less noisy than 

 her mate. Like all the rest of the Parrot family, with a few doubtful 

 exceptions, these birds make their nests in hollow trees, where the 

 female deposits two or three white eggs, which are hatched in twenty- 

 one days: the young grow very slowly, and are quite three years 

 old before they reach maturity : there is, generally, only one brood in 

 a season. 



As the Great White Cockatoos are neither delicate, nor difficult to 

 keep, although natives of a sultry clime, it ought to be quite possible 

 to breed them in captivity : but if it were desired to make the attempt, 

 the cage, or aviary rather, provided for their reception, would require 

 to be made of rods of iron of almost the same size and strength as 

 those employed in the construction of a lion's den, for nothing else, 

 we feel assured, would be able to resist the continual assaults of those 

 tremendous engines of destruction, the beaks of a pair of Great White 

 Cockatoos. 



The general custom in Germany is to give these birds a spacious 

 cage in the form of a bell, from the top of which is hung a metal ring, 

 in which they like to sit and swing themselves, the oscillating move- 

 ment probably reminding them of the swaying to and fro of the branches 



