The beauty and interesting nature of this little bird naturally made me anxious to bring home living examples; I accordingly captured about twenty fully fledged birds, and kept them alive for some time; but the difficulties necessarily attendant upon travelling in a new country rendering it impracticable to afford them the attention they required, I regret to say the whole were lost. My brother-in-law, Mr. Charles Coxen, who resides on the Peel, having succeeded in rearing several, kindly presented me with four, two of which, as before mentioned, have reached England in perfect health. As cage-birds they are as interesting as can possibly be imagined; for, independently of their highly ornamental appearance, they differ from all the other members of their family that I am acquainted with, in having a most animated and pleasing song; besides which, they are constantly billing, cooing, and feeding each other, and assuming every possible variety of graceful position. Their inward warbling song, which cannot be described, is unceasingly poured forth from morn to night, and is even continued throughout the night if they are placed in a room with lights, and where an animated conversation is carried on. In a state of nature they feed exclusively upon grass-seeds, with which their crops are always found crammed: in confinement they thrive equally well upon canary-seed. The sexes are precisely alike in the colouring and marking of their plumage, and gain their full livery in about eight months, or at the second moult from the time of leaving the breeding-place. The young are distinguished from the adults by the crown of the head, which is yellow in the adult, being crossed by numerous fine bars of brown, by the absence of the deep blue spots on the throat, and by the irides being brownish grey. The adults have the forehead and crown straw yellow; the remainder of the head, ear-coverts, nape, upper part of the back, scapularies and wing-coverts pale greenish yellow, each feather having a crescent-shaped mark of blackish brown near the extremity, these marks being numerous and minute on the head and neck; wings brown; the outer webs of the feathers deep green, margined with greenish yellow; face and throat yellow, ornamented on each cheek with a patch of rich blue, below which are three circular drops or spots of bluish black; rump, upper tail-coverts, and all the under surface bright green; two centre tail-feathers blue; the remaining tail-feathers green, crossed in the middle by an oblique band of yellow; irides straw white; nostrils bright blue in some, greenish blue and brown in others; legs pale bluish lead colour. The figures represent an old and a young bird of the natural size. [Illustration: NYMPHICUS NOVÆ-HOLLANDIÆ; (_Wagl:_) _Drawn on Stone by J. & E. Gould from a Drawing by Edw.^d Lear._ _Printed by C. Hullmandel._ ] NYMPHICUS NOVÆ-HOLLANDIÆ, _Wagl._ Cockatoo Parrakeet.