THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
difficulty, walked beneath the tree on which they were perched. This species 
I found more common on the Hawkesbury River, and higher parts of the 
Blue Mountains. . . . The food of this species consists principally of seeds 
of the Banksia, Casuarina, and Hakea, and large white wood horny grubs 
found in living Eucalypts, which it strips and cuts away with its powerful 
bill, and more often when the grub has eaten its way into a sapling. 
Probably by tapping, the bird detects the distance down the limb the grub 
has bored, for it is generally about eight inches below the hole where it has 
entered the branch that the bird commences to tear away the bark and bite 
away the wood in its search for the grub, and it may be another foot before 
it finally obtains it.” 
Mr. A. E. Holden’s notes are of interest : “ For as long as I can remember 
a flock of Black Cockatoos ( Calyptorhynchus funereus) have lived in the 
remoter gullies at the back of Middle Harbour. At one time they numbered 
sixteen or seventeen, now their numbers are reduced to four or five. A few 
years ago we built a camping house of galvanized iron in French’s Forest, 
at the extreme head of Bantry Bay north-eastern arm, and painted the roof 
red with oxide paint. At this time the flock was roosting in a gully below 
the house, and their habit was to move out at the grey dawn and wait for 
the sun amongst the trees in the hill on which our camp was built. They 
must have become familiarised with the hut, for very soon they began to 
disturb our slumbers by flitting on to the ridge capping. The noise they 
made increased, and was not explainable until one morning, on stealing 
outside silently, I caught them picking at the red oxide, and apparently 
devouring small flakes as they bit it off with their powerful beaks. Bush 
fires cleared out their coverts eventually, and they moved to more secure 
fastnesses. On another occasion I was Gill-bird shooting in some Red 
Honeysuckle Scrub with a friend, when a pair of these birds moved suddenly 
out of a bush. An involuntary “ double ” brought them down. On picking 
them up quantities of nectar poured out of their throats, precisely as happens 
with any honey-eating bird, and as the nectar was of the Banksia flower they 
would seem to be most ingenuous feeders, as their huge mouths do not seem 
at all suitable for the operation of honey extraction. In the Southern Alps 
these birds are said to be harbingers of blizzards and storms when seen in 
any sheltered gully in the day-time, and many a miner has ‘ broken camp ’ 
at the sight of them, especially in the months of March or April. On the 
1st August, 1907, three sat in a low bush (whilst a gale and rain was at its 
height), just off the French’s Forest Road, and made most dismal cries. 
They would not move at my approach, and not until I had almost put my 
hand on them did they flit heavily a few yards away.” 
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