THE GREAT BLACK COCKATOO. 
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in its swamps and precipices 
and serrated ridges an almost 
impassable barrier to the un- 
known interior; and the people 
are dangerous savages, in the 
very lowest stage of barbar- 
ism. In such a country, and 
among such a people, are found 
those wonderful productions of 
Nature, the birds of paradise, 
whose exquisite beauty of fonu 
and colour, and strange develop- 
ments of plumage, are calculated to excite 
the wonder and admiration of the most 
civilized and the most intellectual of 
mankind, and to furnish inexhaustible 
materials for study to the naturalist, and for 
speculation to the philosopher. 
COCKATOOS. 
To the same region as the birds of paradise 
belongs the great black cockatoo, and he is 
found in the same forests. But what a con- 
trast he presents to their bewildering loveli- 
ness I His body is small and feeble ; his legs 
are long and weak; he has large wings; and an 
immense head, ornamented with a noble crest, 
and armed with a sharp-pointed hooked bill, 
very strong, and of great size. Over his black 
plumage is dusted a powdery white secretion 
characteristic of the tribe. His bare cheeks 
are of a bright blood-red ; his voice is a whistle ; 
his tongue is a deep red narrow cylinder of 
flesh, terminating in a furrowed black horny 
plate, and possessing a certain amount of pre- 
SUPERB PLUME blR-D. 
