COCKATOOS. 
177 
wanton destruction of his property. Mr. Gould^ writing on 
the Crested Cockatoo [Cacatua galerita) of Australia^ says 
that on the fields of newly-sown grain and ripening maize 
this bird commits the greatest devastation. It may be ima- 
gined that it is not with a small portion that a flock of these 
voracious and large birds, varying from one hundred to a 
thousand, will be satisfied. Before man settled in its haunts 
or had leanied from experience its destructiveness, the sight 
of a flock of these lively birds, with their snow-white plu- 
mage, long yellow crest, and thick black bill, disporting 
" amidst the umbrageous foliage like spirits of light," must 
have been a cheering sight. Mr. Gould says that the noise 
caused by the discordant screams of a flock of these birds, 
can hardly be conceived by those who have only heard one 
or two of them in a state of captivity. This bird most 
usually deposits its eggs in the holes of trees, and sometimes 
also in the fissures of rocks. The conspicuous white clifi's on 
the banks of the Murray River in South Australia are annu- 
ally resorted to for the purposes of nidification, and are quite 
honeycombed by them. If the cockatoos are proportion- 
ately more noisy than rooks at such a season, it is to be 
hoped that colonists will not just yet settle on the ground 
within some miles of them. One of the handsomest of the 
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