8 
Leadbeaters Cockatoo. 
Cockatoos. 
them, and Sir Thomas, with his handful of convidl servants, quickly drove the opposing force of some 
hundreds of brave men headlong into the Murray, leaving, however, many slain. That was not the 
the only battle fought in that neighbourhood, though the only one recorded in the annals of our land. 
When the first bands of settlers sent up their sheep and drays, the aboriginals soon found out the 
superior flavour of juicy mutton, or jumbuck as they called it, over the hard dry kangaroo, or 
peppermint-smelling opossum, and conceiving their right of tribute, or perhaps conceiving nothing at 
all but the relish of a good meal, seized where they could the fleecy brutes, and literally, ere long, 
hecatombs of slaughtered vidtims were smoking on their fires. This naturally enough, perhaps, brought 
on them terrible reprisals, and I have stood on the spot where, from the opposite bank of the river, far 
out of reach of spear or boomerang, the new settlers sent their rifle balls crashing into the black camp. 
It is often very sad to think of what the first impressions made upon the native tribes by our advent 
must have been. They saw a strange race of men, of a strange color, strangely, but wondrously, 
clothed and armed, taking up their land, building immense mia-mias, killing off or frightening away 
their game—asking no leave to settle, offering nothing in return for the appropriated territory treating 
them often with unwarrantable cruelty and with undisguised contempt it would be strange if this were 
borne by untutored savages without protest of some sort or other; and if they failed to see the difference 
between the whites taking their land and their game, and their taking the white s sheep and sugar, who 
can wonder ? The early settlement of the land does not redound altogether to the credit of our 
English name, and one cannot but think that many massacres might have been avoided; while those 
men—very few indeed let us hope they were—of the baser sort, who, forgetting the very first principles 
of the most savage hospitality, mixed strychnine with the flour they gave away to the blacks, can only 
have the undisguised scorn and contempt I was once glad to show to one who boasted of the 
dastardly deed. 
But to return to Benanee from which this episode has led us. 
A little flock of about a dozen of these very beautiful birds, alighted on a myall tree (acacia 
pendula), and there for some time disported themselves among its graceful foliage. The tree was in 
blossom at the time, and its profusion of rich yellow flowers, its silvery drooping branches, with the 
rose breasts, the bright salmon wings, the tricolored crests, the birds in all conceivable attitudes, now 
chasing one another, now rising a little above the tree and wheeling round it, now in mere wantonness 
plucking off the yellow blossoms and tossing them to the ground, with the clear deep blue sky above, 
just below the waters of the lake rippling to its margin, its bosom covered with innumerable flocks of 
duck, teal, and the graceful swan, while on the waters edge stood two of the beautiful white egrets 
(Hereodias egrottoides), fairy spirits, reigning in the solitude. For half an hour or so, hidden in some 
undergrowth, I.watched the antics and the tricks of these lovely birds, and so fair was all, that, though 
sadly wanting a specimen, to have disturbed the peaceful joyfulness of the scene by firing my gun 
would have seemed to me veritable sacrilege in Nature’s temple. 
These birds do not go in the immense flocks of hundreds like the common white cockatoo. I have 
never seen more than ten or twelve together. It is shier also and much less noisy than the sulphur-crested 
bird, its note being somewhat plaintive. Its mode of building and its eggs are similar to the bird last 
described. In confinement it is never so amusing nor so friendly, and rarely learns to say much more 
than such short sentences as “ pretty cocky.” Its food is similar, and its treatment, when domesticated, 
will be the same as the sulphur-crested. Its rare beauty will always win for it the admiration of 
those who appreciate form rather than talent. 
Description .—Generally white ; feathers at the base of the bill crimson; forehead, neck, breast, 
Jk 
