ROSEBREASTED COCKATOO. (GALAH.) 
1911, they were still in flocks on the Minilya River, and on Sept. 29th a pair 
shot by me on the Gascoyne River were not breeding then, as proved on 
dissection. They are usually rather tame and confiding in their habits, and 
in August, 1911, a flock of some size was observed by me to drink regularly 
at a raised horse- trough close to the homestead (about 50 yards distant) of 
Minilya Station, although it was a busy place, as horses constantly were 
brought to drink, and waggons and other vehicles constantly passing within a 
few feet, the trough being between the homestead and the stables, stockyard, 
woolshed, etc., on the other side. They were not observed about Point 
Cloates as that district is practically devoid of timber.” 
Mr. W. B. Alexander has sent me the following note : “ The only occasion 
on which I have met with these birds was in Oct., 1915, when I spent a 
few days at Waddouring in the Merredin district. A pair of Galahs were 
apparently nesting in a patch of open timber country near the homestead, 
as we frequently saw them near the same place. 
“ Mr. J. M. Drummond, the owner of the property, who is much interested 
in birds, informed me that they had not been seen in the locality previously, 
and I heard subsequently that they remained through the summer.” 
Mr. Thos. P. Austin has written me : “In the inland portion of New 
South Wales there is no Cockatoo so numerous as the ‘ Galah ’ ; in the Bourke 
district I have seen enormous flocks ; just after leaving Bourke on my way 
home, from a railway carriage window, while crossing a large plain, I saw 
acres and acres of the ground just simply a mass of pink and grey with these 
birds. On one station I visited in this district these birds were very numerous, 
but I was informed that there were very few about there at that time to what 
there usually were, as the harvesting was just over, and the Galahs had been 
so destructive they had been poisoned and shot in thousands ; in fact I was 
told that beneath some of the trees around the cultivation paddock, at haryest- 
ing time, there were enormous heaps of dead Galahs. Even at the time of my 
visit a great many were being shot to feed the dogs in the rabbit packs. It 
seems a great pity that these beautiful birds should be so destructive as to 
necessitate their destruction in such a wholesale manner. They are so 
numerous in some districts, that it must be quite impossible for them all to 
find nesting hollows, every hollow appears to be in use ; this can be known by 
the birds having the habit of gnawing away the bark at the entrance hole. 
The nesting hollow is usually lined with eucalypt leaves gathered when green.” 
From the Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat, No. 1, Vol. III., I quote the following 
accounts : Mr. K. H. Bennett’s notes read : “ I found Cacatua roseicapilla 
very plentiful near the Lachlan River in Southern New South Wales, and 
about the sandhills for some thirty miles out on the northern side. They 
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