BANKSIAN COCKATOO. 
occasion, there must have been thirty or forty of them feeding at one time, 
and I shot sixteen of them without moving from the tree. They kept coming 
and going all day long, and did not seem to take much notice of the report 
of the gun, or of their companions falling dead or wounded out of the tree, 
and I could have shot all without any trouble, but they were moulting and 
not fit for specimens. Those I obtained were required for the pot, and their 
flesh is delicious, and I much prefer it to either Tallegallus or Megapodius. 
The contents of the crops of all I skinned consisted of seeds, berries and 
caterpillars. Their brightly-coloured tail-feathers are much prized by the 
Aborigines. Those that were with me took one of the red ones from the 
male, and alternately a red and yellow barred one from a female, until they 
had made a plaited head-band of about eight feathers, and then wore this 
as a head-dress.” 
The preceding notes, which have been grouped, together agree somewhat 
with the ranges of the subspecies to be determined hereafter. It may be as 
well to point out, however, that, strictly speaking, not much of the life-history 
of the species is yet known. Its feeding and flocking habits are recorded by 
most observers, but little else is added. 
As already recorded, the different plumages of the immature, female, 
and male led to much confusion, and this was aggravated by the early writers 
not discriminating two very distinct species. Inasmuch as practically all 
the early records referred to birds from New South Wales, there is practically 
no question that the early names bestowed upon these plumage changes are 
absolute synonyms, and if subspecies are recognisable later these names 
will be inapplicable. 
Until the time of Gould, no subspecies were differentiated, but that 
worker at once recognised small differences when he received birds from 
distant localities, and he determined these as species. He was well aware 
that they were only geographical variations, and often referred to ' them 
as such, but used the word species for what we call subspecies. 
Thus, in 1836, he named Calyptorhynchus naso from the Swan River, 
Western Australia, and in 1842 he added Galyptorhynchus nrmcrorhynchus from 
Port Essington, Northern Territory. His distinctions were slender and in 
the first-named subtle, and have not been fully confirmed, but he figured all 
three as valid species in the “Birds of Australia,” though it seems that he 
may have been dubious later on this point. 
Regarding these Cockatoos, Gould always maintained the distinction of the 
three species he had early accepted and figured in his “ Birds of Australia,” 
and I here reproduce his notes in conjunction. 
VOL. VL 
113 
