GENUS CACATUA. 
THE homes of this genus are Australia, the Molucca and Phillipine Islands, and New Guinea. It is of a shy, 
retiring disposition, preferring the quiet of distant forests to the neighbourhood of human habitations. 
Both arboral and terrestrial in its habits, it is to be found among lofty tree-tops, on the borders of rivers, 
located in swamps, or affecting the isolated trees of plains and cleared land. The cry is a harsh scream, which is 
much augmented in volume if the genus is gregarious, for then the whole flock utters a simultaneous shriek. 
The generic attributes are a generally large, strong bill, varying in length, broad at the base, and more or less 
compressed at the sides ; the culmen is much arched at the tip, which is very acute ; wings rather long and 
pointed, with the second, third, and fourth quills nearly equal and longest ; orbits, bare, but to a greater extent 
below than above the eye, and varying slightly in size. Food, vegetable substances, such as hard seeds, tuberous 
roots, and the larvae of insects. They usually swallow large stones along with food. Nests are sought in the 
holes of trees or in fissures of rocks ; the number of eggs laid, two ; the colour, white. 
PLATE XVII. 
CACATUA GALERITA. (Vieiil) 
GREAT SULPHUR-CRESTED COCKATOO. 
IT has been asserted by several ornithologists that the crested Cockatoos of the continent of Australia, of New 
Guinea, and even those inhabiting Tasmania are separate and distinct species, but the only warranty for 
these assumptions is based upon the decided difference existing in the shape of the bills of the New Guinea 
birds and those of Australia. If, however, such a slight difference is sufficient to establish a distinction, species 
could be multiplied into almost untold numbers. By far the most reasonable hypothesis is that assumed by the 
late Mr. Gould, that the difference is " merely a modification of the organ for the peculiar kind of food afforded 
by the respective countries. The Tasmanian bird, which is the largest in every respect, has the bill, esj^ecially 
the upper mandible, less abruptly curved, exhibiting a tendency to the form of that organ in the genus Licmetis- 
The bill of the New Guinea bird is much rounder, and is in fact fitted to perform a totally different office from 
that of the Tasmanian Cockatoo, which subsists principally on the small bulbs of the terrestrial orchidacea, for 
procuring which its lengthened upper mandible is admirably adapted ; while it is more than probable that no 
food of this kind is to be obtained by the New Guinea bird, the structure of whose bill indicates that hard seed, 
nuts, etc., constitute the principal part of its diet. The crops and stomachs of those killed in Tasmania were 
very muscular, and contained seeds, grain, native bread (a species of fungus), small tuberous and bulbous roots, 
and, in most instances, large stones." Taking it for granted that the Crested White Cockatoo of Australia, 
Tasmania, and the Pacific Islands is identical in character and species, then the extent of its distribution exceeds 
that of almost any other bird. It is of a gregarious disposition, moving about in extensive flocks, to the dismay 
of the farmers, upon whose newly-sown and ripening crops of wheat and maize it commits irreparable injury ; 
its voracity is almost illimitable, and only equalled by its cunning. Generally it is one of the noisiest birds in the 
bush, its harsh, grating screams are most irritating, and never fail to elicit expressions the reverse of 
complimentary from the bushmen ; yet when on a depredatory excursion an immense flock of them will settle 
upon a field without a sound and commit their havoc in complete silence, whilst invariably one of their number 
is perched upon a tree on the look-out, and the instant a man appears it emits a low warning scream, when the 
Avhole flock rises en masse and wings its way to safety before a gun can be properly pointed at them, choosing by 
preference, when they can, the whitened skeleton of a gaunt dead gum tree, to which they cling in every 
conceivable posture, perching along horizontal branches, climbing by beak and claw up the vertical stem, or 
sitting slantwise on a sloping bough. 
