256 
COCKATOOS GENERALLY. 
hensile power. This strange and even weird-looking creature inhabits 
the lower parts of the forests, making his appearance alone, or at most 
with a couple of companions. His flight is slow and stealthy. His 
choice of a habitat is dictated by the character of his food, which 
consists of seeds and fruits, and specially of the nuts of the canari-tree. 
The shell of the canari-nut is so hard that only a heavy hammer will 
crack it ; yet the cockatoo manages the operation with his beak. He 
takes the nut endways in his bill, holding it steady by a pressure of 
the tongue, and then he uses his sharp-edged lower mandible to saw a 
transverse notch. Next, he seizes the nut with his foot, and biting off 
a piece of leaf, retains it in the deep fissure of his upper mandible; 
transferring the nut to his beak, he keeps it from slipping by means 
of the leaf, inserts the edge of the lower mandible in the aforesaid 
transverse notch, and nips oflT a piece of the shell. Again removing 
the nut to his claws, he thrusts inside the long sharp point of the bill, 
and with his extensible tongue picks out the kernel, bit by bit. 
Several species of cockatoos are found in the islands of the East 
Indian Archipelago ; and the natives carry on a considerable trade in 
these and other birds. Thus Lord George Campbell says : " The canoes 
are a great sight : they come alongside full of fruit and eggs, and 
literally crowded with lories and cockatoos ; while occasionally a casso- 
wary, with legs tied, lies prostrate at the bottom of the canoe. These 
cockatoos," continues the lively author of "Log Letters from tlie 
Challenger" " are not the Australian yellow-crested species, but gentle- 
manly-looking old fellows, whose white feathers curl like moustaches 
over their beaks, and their erected crests show pink underneath. They 
sit solemnly along the sides of the canoes, while the loris are tied by 
their legs to bamboo perches, and are alwaj^s mo\'ing and bobbing 
about, never at rest. They are quite lovely ; one kind coloured 
crimson, and another green, blue, and purple." 
THE GOURA PIGEON. 
To New Guinea belongs the beautiful goura, or crowned pigeon, 
with his slate-blue plumage, soft and sleek, and his crest of barbless 
