BOSE-BBEASTED GOGKATOO. 
25 
where they wheel round and round in untiring gyrations, safe from 
the attacks of every foe. 
Capture the Eosy Cockatoo, however, take him from the maternal 
nest, even, in his babyhood, and bring him up by hand, what then? 
Well, he is out of place in your cage, or in your aviary, and he knows 
and feels it, and even when most tame, the mal du pays takes strong 
hold of it at times, and he his apt to bite, and to scream his loudest 
and most implacable scream as a protest against his thraldom: the 
chains may be gilded, it is true, but are they not chains all the same? 
and is it not cruel, not only to deprive him of his freedom, but to 
take him, by main force, and carry him away captive into a cold and 
sunless land, where gum-trees languish, and mimosas fade, and the 
tree-ferns droop their feathery fronds and die? 
The Eosy Cockatoos are gregarious birds, assembling in small flocks, 
however, compared to those formed by their relations, the Great White- 
crested fellows that love to soar, far beyond the reach of unaided human 
sight, in the broad expanse of ethereal blue, bathed in the light of 
an Australian noon, when the air quivers as one may see it do over 
the mouth of a furnace, and the fiery rays of the sun pour down un- 
dimmed by a single fleecy cloud; then the rosy one seeks the shade 
of the forest, and dozes among the tops of the trees, apparently fearful 
lest the strong heat and vivid sunshine should fade the glory of his 
rosy vest, or may be blanch his lavender-coloured coat; for he is a 
great dandy, and never weary of preening and dressing his plumes, 
which in a cage look so often rough and untidy, as if the poor bird, 
with liberty, had lost heart, and personal pride, and cared only to pour 
forth the story of his woes and wrongs in the most ear-piercing strains. 
With the exception of the Leadbeater there is no bird with which 
we are acquainted that “plays^’ so earnestly, or so gracefully as the 
Eosy Cockatoo; he is quite a gymnast too, and the way in which he 
swings himself round and round on his perch, with expanded wings 
and tail, is no less amusing than interesting: the love-making again 
of a pair of Ro.seicapilU is a sight to be seen: what a series of bows 
and capers, what tender, self-contained warblingl to hear him “coo” 
to his lady-love, you would never suppose him to be the pink fiend, 
whose piercing shrieks but just now drove you from his presence with 
your fingers in your ears: but he is: when he is teased he screams, 
when he is angry he screams, when he is hungry or thirsty he shrieks, 
but when he is jealous he yells like a demon — or as demons are sup- 
posed to yell — but when he has got what he wants, and is in a good 
humour, his '^warbling”, if loud, is not at all disagreeable, but that is 
so seldom, that, taught by experience, we prefer, on the whole, his room 
