PINK COCKATOO. 
the outside bird gives the alarm, and the mate flies screeching from the hollow, 
unlike the Blood-stained Cockatoo, which usually leaves its nest very quietly.” 
Mr. G. A. Keartland notes : 44 Cacatua leadb eater i is an inland species, 
and is found in the most inhospitable portions of the interior, where it is usually 
seen in pairs, or small flocks consisting of parents and young. Those shot 
whilst I was on the exploring expeditions had their crops filled with seed, which 
looked like skinned peas. Each of the wells we sank in the Great Desert of 
North-western Australia was visited by a pair or more of these birds, which 
came to drink and then went away. In the Wimmera District of Victoria 
they are numerous, and assemble in small flocks, when many of them are 
trapped and brought to Melbourne for sale. If taken young they soon learn 
to speak, but are very poor talkers compared with other Cockatoos.” 
The variation in this species is so little that no one had remarked upon it 
until I prepared my “ Reference List to the Birds of Australia,” published in 
the Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., 1912. I then examined my collection and noted 
that the birds from West Australia as well as from North-west Australia showed 
differences in coloration, so admitted three subspecies thus : 
Cacatoes leadbeateri leadbeateri (Vigors). New South Wales, 
Victoria, South Australia. 
Cacatoes leadbeateri mungi subsp. n. 
“ Differs from C. 1. leadbeateri in its paler coloration and smaller size. 
Mungi, North-west Australia. Interior North-West Australia.” 
Cacatoes leadbeateri mollis subsp. n. 
44 Differs from C. 1. leadbeateri in lacking the yellow coloration of the 
crest, and in having deeper coloration on the under surface, 
and on the inner webs of the primaries. West Australia.” 
Almost simultaneously a Swedish Expedition to North-west Ausfspalia 
reported the discovery of a new form of Cockatoo, Soderberg describing the 
form I had two months previously named as C. 1. mungi , giving almost the 
same separative characters. 
I have again reviewed the species and would maintain the above three 
subspecies, which I continued to recognize in my List of the Birds of Australia 
published at the end of 1913. 
I find, however, that South Australian birds average less than those 
from New South Wales and Victoria, and am therefore providing a name for 
these as they constitute a valid subspecies, according to the standard accepted 
by workers in connection with Palaearctic and American birds. Out of eleven 
specimens from New South Wales and Victoria, nine go over 270 mm. in the 
wing, the other two measuring 266 and 268 mm., the average being 273 mm. 
195 
