GREAT SALMON-CRESTED COCKATOO. 141 



"You will be interested to Lear how my bird once saved an infant's 

 life, by enabling one that was totally inexperienced in the matter to 

 wean another. In fact it is a bird one might write a book about." 

 Our correspondent, however, furnishes no details of this interesting 

 experiment, but proceeds: "It (the Cockatoo) was devoted to its barrel 

 the first year, and its ways were most curious. It hid its egg deep 

 down in the paper, which was all bitten up into minute scraps; then 

 it did not sit as ordinary birds do on their eggs, but laid sideways 

 and rolled about. The last two years it took no notice of its eggs 

 whatever." 



The above interesting letter elicited several replies, and offers of 

 mates for the lady's Cockatoo, but nothing came of it, and the Mo- 

 luccan lives a life of single blessedness to the present day; which is 

 a pity certainly, but cannot be helped. We did think of giving her 

 a trial, but reflection as to the risk incurred decided us finally to 

 abandon the notion too; for after all it was doubtful if such a bird 

 would have agreed with a mate, as happened in the case of another 

 correspondent, who once introduced two of these birds to each other; 

 when, although they were an undoubted pair, they immediately com- 

 menced to fight so furiously, that one of them must have been killed 

 if the owner had not interfered and separated them — a by no means 

 easy task, during which he was severely bitten. 



Again, Parrots may be very kind to people and children in their 

 own house, and when transferred to a strange place may fiercely attack 

 everyone, child or adult, that comes near them; so, as we have said, 

 every negotiation fell through, and the idea of breeding Moluccan 

 Cockatoos in captivity, is for the present in abeyance. 



As might be expected, these birds live to a great age. Dr. Puss 

 relates, on the authority of Herr Dusek, of Vienna, that a Moluccan 

 Cockatoo, which had lived twenty-one years in the aviary of the Princess 

 Schwartzenberg, was then placed with a male, and soon afterwards 

 laid an egg ! 



A dealer of Berlin, P. Schmidt, acquired one of these birds, which 

 had been in the possession of one family, handed down from father 

 to son, for nearly one hundred years; and it afterwards lived with him 

 for nineteen years more, and then died, not from old age, but from 

 an accident that befel it. 



As happens with most of the Parrot family, the males are the best 

 speakers ; the females only learning to say a word or two, which they 

 repeat in a softer tone than their mates, although they can scream, 

 or yell rather, in quite as loud a key. 



In this country the Moluccan Cockatoo appears to command a higher 



