SLBNBEB-BILLEB COOKAT^. 
31 
in the tree tops on the Plenty Eanges in Victoria, and. — tell it not in 
Gath — firing at them, although it was the height of their breeding- 
season; but so tall were those eucalyptii, that our charge of large duck- 
shot did not even bring down a leaf, and of course the birds flew 
away to a short distance with a series of shrieks that sounded uncom- 
monly like derisive laughter. 
Had we known what age the young ones were we should, in spite 
of its diameter of nearly four feet, have cut down that forest giant 
that, in one of its hollow arms, held the dearest treasure of those 
Cockatoos; but we did not know; the young ones might be only just 
hatched, and it would be a pity to take them, for they would not live, 
or there might only be eggs, which would have been certain to have 
got broken in the fall, so wo left the grand old tree standing, and 
we hope it yet rears its head towards heaven, overtopping all its fellows, 
as it did in those far-ofi: times. 
Ay de mi! we were young and careless then, but the weird beauty 
of those lonely sylvan scenes, peopled with '^strange bright birds of 
purple wing,” as some poet has it, vocal with the mimic chant of the 
Monura, the delusive tinkling of the bell-bird, the incessant demands 
of the bald-head, monk- or friar-bird to know the hour of the day: 
'“^what 0^ clock, what o’clock!” and at night resounding with the shrill 
screams of the phalanger, the hoarse-grunting squeak of the opossum, 
and the angiy vociferations of the great night-jar for the restoration 
of the dainty morsel of which, according to a colonial tradition, he had 
been deprived by some vagrant Jew, ^‘Ma Pork, Ma Pork”, impresses 
itself upon our recollection with a vividness and intensity that no lapse 
of time, or distance has yet been able to efface or even to impair. 
But we are forgetting our friend of the slender-bill, the dainty feeder 
on the choicest orchidaceous bulbs, no less than on the tender corn 
of the settler, who bears poor “nosey’ even less good-will than he has 
won at the hands of the earliest writer on foreign cage-birds in this 
laud of ours. Yes: he is fond of roots, and an adept at digging them 
out of the hard soil, for in Australia, tree orchids, that is orchids 
growing on trees, are the exception, and not the rule, as in Tropical 
America, the head-quarters of their race, and his long bill, that other- 
wise seems so disproportionate and out of place, stands him in good 
stead, both of pickaxe and shovel, and should he find, as no doubt 
he often does, a grub, or chrysalis of coleoptera or moth, he will be 
quite certain not to let it go a-begging. Nevertheless, in captivity, 
he will do very well without insect food, and, in point of fact, a very 
great deal better, because too succulent a diet is apt to arouse feelings 
and passions that are better left quiescent, unless a partner is presented 
