_Pink Cockatoo_, Colonists of Swan River.
This beautiful species of Cockatoo enjoys a wide range over the southern
portions of the Australian continent; it never approaches very near the
sea, but evinces a decided preference for the belts of lofty gums and
scrubs clothing the sides of the rivers of the interior of the country;
it annually visits the Toodyay district of Western Australia; and, as I
ascertained, it annually breeds at Gawler in South Australia. On reading
the works of Sturt and Mitchell, I find that both those travellers met
with it in the course of their explorations, particularly on the hanks
of the rivers Darling and Murray; in fact, most of the interior
districts between New South Wales and Adelaide are inhabited by it:
future research alone will determine the extent of its range to the
northward; as yet no specimen has been received either from the north or
north-west coasts.
It must be admitted that this species is at once the most beautiful and
elegant of the genus yet discovered, and it will consequently ever be
most highly prized for the cage and the aviary; two examples, now in the
possession of the Earl of Derby, appear to bear confinement equally as
well as any of their congeners; in their disposition they are not so
sprightly and animated, but at the same time they are much less noisy, a
circumstance which tends to enhance rather than decrease our partiality
for them.
Few birds tend more to enliven the monotonous hues of the Australian
forests than this beautiful species, whose “pink-coloured wings and
glowing crest,” says Sir T. Mitchell, “might have embellished the air of
a more voluptuous region.”
Its note is more plaintive than that of _C. galerita_, and does not
partake of the harsh grating sound peculiar to that species.
General plumage white; forehead, front and sides of the neck, centre of
the under surface of the wing, middle of the abdomen, and the basal
portion of the inner webs of the tail-feathers tinged with rose-colour,
becoming of a rich salmon-colour under the wing; feathers of the
occipital crest crimson at the base, with a yellow spot in the centre
and white at the tip; bill light horn-colour; feet dark brown.
The sexes are nearly equal in size; but the female has the yellow spots
in the centre of the crest more conspicuous and better defined than her
mate, whose crest, although larger, is not so diversified in colour as
that of his mate; on the other hand, the salmon tint of the under
surface is much more intense in the male than in the female.
The Plate represents the two sexes about the natural size.
[Illustration:
CACATUA SANGUINEA: _Gould_.
_J. Gould and H.C. Richter del et lith._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._
]
CACATUA SANGUINEA, _Gould_.
Blood-stained Cockatoo.
_Cacatua sanguinea_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 138.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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