WHITE COCKATOO. 
contained seeds, grain, native bread (a species of fungus), small tuberous and 
bulbous roots, and in most instances large stones. As may be readily 
imagined, this bird is not regarded with favour by the agriculturist, upon 
whose fields of newly sown grain and ripening maize it commits the greatest 
devastation ; it is consequently hunted and shot down wherever it is found, 
a circumstance which tends much to lessen its numbers. It evinces a decided 
preference for the open plains and cleared lands, rather than for the dense 
brushes near the coast ; and, except when feeding or reposing on the trees 
after a repast, the presence of a flock, which sometimes amounts to thousands, 
is certain to be indicated by their screaming notes, the discordance of which 
may be easily conceived by those who have heard the peculiarly loud, piercing, 
grating scream of the bird in captivity, always remembering the immense 
increase of the din occasioned by the large number of birds emitting their 
harsh notes at the same moment ; still, I considered this annoyance amply 
compensated by their sprightly actions and the life their snowy forms imparted 
to the dense and never-varying green of the Australian forest — a feeling 
participated in by Sir Thomas Mitchell who says, “ Amidst the umbrageous 
foliage, forming dense masses of shade, the White Cockatoos sported like 
spirits of light.” The situations chosen for the purpose of nidification vary 
with the nature of the locality the bird inhabits ; the eggs are usually 
deposited in the holes of trees, but they are also placed in fissures in the rocks 
wherever they may present a convenient site ; the crevices of the white 
cliffs bordering the Murray, in South Australia, are annually resorted to for 
this purpose by thousands of this bird, and are said to be completely honey- 
combed by them.’ ” 
Campbell, in his Nests and Eggs , reported that he could get no confirmation 
of this Murray river habitat, but Chisholm in the Emu , Vol. XIII., 1914, 
gave a plate XVI. of the “ Cockatoo Cliffs on the River Murray ” and wrote : 
“ The cliff -building Cockatoos were there in hundreds, and made a striking 
picture as they dashed wildly out of hollows 150 feet above the water and rent 
the air with a continual harsh ‘ Kar-r-r.’ ” 
Captain S. A. White, a few pages on, gave a picture of a Young White 
Cockatoo at entrance of nesting burrow, from a photo taken by A. H. E. 
Mattingley, writing : “ Numbers of these fine birds were nesting in the high 
cliffs rising from the river.” 
Mr. Thos. P. Austin has written me from Cobb ora. New South Wales : 
‘ Although never very plentiful in this district, there are always a few breed 
about twenty miles down the Talbragar River, where they mostly choose 
the largest red gum trees which have a suitable hollow. On this estate they 
are very seldom seen, probably not more than once in every two years, but. 
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