BANKSIAN COCKATOO. 
nest is found by watching the bird into the hole. It does not make Co* tom, 
nor cut off the branches of the trees ; but it cuts off May* ryboA ro and 
Mun’mow (the fruit of two species of Persoonia), without however eating them, 
before they are ripe, to the great injury and vexation of the natives.” 
“ Mr. Caley has informed us that he recollects having shot a bird soon 
after his arrival in the colony, which he believes to have been of the same 
species as the Cal. Cookii of the Society’s collection. It differed from the 
Wyla and Geringora in having no yellow in its plumage. He also expresses 
his opinion that Cal. Cookii is the Caratf of the natives.” Vigors and Horsfield 
then include C. solandri ? Temminck, to which I hereafter make reference. 
Wagler, in his Monograph in 1832, also seems to have been uncertain of 
the forms, as he admitted G. leachi as of Kuhl, citing C. cookii Temm. as a 
synonym, but attaching thereto the Banksian Cockatoo of Phillips. Then he 
included C. temminckii Kuhl, giving as synonyms the Banksian Cockatoo of 
White, the Psittacus solandri of Temminck, and then as “ Avis junior ” the 
Cacatua viridis of Vieillot. This synonym, as I later show, is correct as 
far as it goes. However, Wagler now proposed a new species, C. stellatus, 
which is shortly fully discussed, and then C. banksii, with a note concerning 
Latham’s varieties. The trouble seems to have been in connection with the 
yellow spotted bird which we now know to be the female. The multiplicity 
of names and opinions so confused Gould that he continued the misusage 
of a name in connection with the next species. The present species he 
accurately fixed, and moreover differentiated the geographical forms of the 
West and North, and the more recent consideration of these forms is 
discussed hereafter. 
Captain S. A. White has written me : “I have met with C. banksii in 
the fairly open country of New South Wales upon many occasions, but have 
never seen them in large flocks, five or six being about the usual number. 
They seem to live principally upon the seeds of the Bankske, but I have Seen 
them busily at work tearing open the stems and bark of Acacia trees in 
search of the longicorn larvae.” 
Notes on the typical form are scarce, as the bird itself now is. I 
quote from the Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., No. 1., Vol. III., the following : 
“Mr. George Savidge wrote : ‘ C. banksi is very sparingly dispersed throughout 
the Clarence Liver District. I have usually met with it in two’s or three’s and 
small flocks, but during the winter of 1908 I counted one flock containing 
about twenty-five or thirty birds. They w r ere feeding on some Eucalyptus 
in flower, biting large pieces of the branches off with their powerful bills, the 
ground being strewn with them, and it reminded me of a great storm, when 
trees are dashed about in all directions. I watched them upon several 
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