254 A HAND-BOOK OF THE MANAGEMENT OF ANIMALS 



Length of life in captivity. 



A specimen has been living since 1877. 



(161) THE LONG-BILLED COCKATOO. 

 (LICMETIS TENUIEOSTEIS— Wagler.) 



Description. — General colour white ; forehead and face reddish ; 

 throat and upper breast pinkish red (in younger specimens only- 

 patches) ; bare skin round the eyes faint blue-black ; the upper beak 

 elongated. In some specimens there is more red than in others. It 

 has no crest, but the feathers of the head are erectile. 



Sab. — Found in South and South-West Australia, and also more 

 or less in some other parts. 



Length of life in captivity. 

 Specimens have been living for the last fourteen years. 



(162) THE GREAT BLACK COCKATOO. 

 (MICEOGLOSSA ATEEEIMA— (#meZ.) ) 



Description. — Size large, general colour black, glossed with a light 

 greenish-grey tinge ; a large bare pinkish patch on the cheek below the 

 eye ; the crest is composed of numerous slender feathers directed back- 

 ward. 



Hab. — New Guinea ; also found in the adjacent islands of Eastern 

 Australia. 



Length of life in captivity. 

 A specimen lived for a year only. 



Treatment in health. 



Housing. — "With the exception, perhaps, of the last-named species, 

 all the cockatoos described above are more or less hardy birds, and 

 therefore easy to accommodate ; it is only necessary to be careful about 

 draughts and sudden change of temperature. The method of keeping 

 cockatoos chained up to a perch is somewhat antiquated, but it is 

 decidedly preferable, being less cruel, to imprisoning them in very 

 small cages, where they have hardly room to turn ; spacious iron 

 cages made of \ inch rods and about three feet square, are admirably 

 adapted for exhibiting them in a zoological garden ; the perches for 

 the cage should be made of the hardest possible wood ; a bedding of 

 hay should be provided, and small logs of old timber or cocoanut 

 shells given to amuse the birds; even where an opportunity existed, 

 cockatoos have not been observed to indulge in a bath, but most of 



