File:The birds of Australia (16679060359).jpg

PLATE XXXIX.
GENUS CALOPSITTA.
THIS, like the last, is another unique genus, whose only representative is to be found very fairly distributed
over the continent of Australia. It is gregarious and migratory, and equally adapted for life on the open
plains or rolling downs. The two birds are often found associated.
CALOPSITTA NOYiE HOLLANDS.
COCKATOO PAR HA KEET, OB COCKATIEL. Genus: Calopsitta.
THIS solitary example extant of the genus is to be met with commonly throughout Australia within a radius of
a hundred miles of the coast. It has the same migratory and gregarious habits as the Melopsittacus and
Euphemoe. Gould first found it breeding in the apple tree (angophoria) flats about the Hunter and Peel Rivers.
The ground at times was covered by flocks of them, all busy picking up food, and hundreds together might be
seen on the branches of dead gum trees standing near the water. From these circumstances he gathered that
they were more numerous on the eastern than on the western coasts, and that water close at hand was an
indispensable condition of their locality.
Prom February and March till the following September the Cockatiels spend their time in the far
north ; but as soon as instinct tells them that the season of reproduction is at hand they make a simultaneous
movement southward, branching east and Avest according to inclination, and arrive at their destinations precisely
at the same time, whether it be the Liverpool Plains in Xew South Wales, or the York District in' Western
Australia. As soon as the breeding and rearing of broods is accomplished they wend their way northward
again. To accomplish these long flights Nature has provided the Cockatiel with strong pinions, by which it
moves with long, easy motion. Upon rising from the ground it makes for the nearest tree, and selects a dead
branch by preference, upon which it perches lengthwise. Its legs are made strong and long to fit it to be a good
walker and runner.
As its name implies, this is a miniature imitation of the Cockatoos, though it has not their power of
moving its crest ; but in every other respect it is a much more pleasing bird, for it has a bright, friendly, and
imitative disposition that renders it the king of pets. Caught young, the male may be trained to perform all
manner of pretty and engaging tricks. It is a very noisy bird, and from its love of mimicry will make fair
imitation of the song of the Budgerigar or Canary. As much cannot be said of the female, who is hopelessly dense,
and never learns anything. Even as an exemplary mother she scarcely comes up to the mark, but in this direction
her duties are so arduous that it is scarcely fair to condemn her for taking relaxation when she can get it - y
and she makes up for this one dereliction of duty by being almost silent — a virtue that cannot be too much
commended in view of her mate's noisiness. At most she gives an occasional ghost of a shriek, or hisses hoarsely
like a young owl when disturbed from his nest. The young ones hiss in the same way from a very early age.
Unlike most of the Parrot family, the Cockatiel seems to have nothing of the whittling propensity so
distinctively a trait in the Cockatoo proper ; it does not even know how to hollow out a hole for its own nest, and
will lay on the ground if driven to extremities. This only happens in captivity ; in natural conditions it speedily
chooses a hollow in a gum tree near water, where the female deposits on an average five or six eggs, and
sometimes as many as nine, which are hatched in twenty-one days from the laying of the last one. The male
Cockatiel is a most attentive husband, and takes his turn on the nest with exemplary punctuality and patience,