MANY foolish little birds try to fly before they are strong enough, and so flutter to the ground, where they become easy prey to enemies. Karaway, the White Cockatoo, wasn't going to make similar mistakes. Barring accidents, he had a long life before him. Was not his great-great-grandmother over a hundred years old? There was, indeed, no need to hurry at the beginning. He was so well feathered, when his mother coaxed him out of the hollow spout at the top of a big red gum tree, that from the ground he and his parent looked as much alike as two peas. From an ugly, clumsy-looking, almost naked, dark-skinned infant, who nodded and rocked his big head and squawked all day, he had become a sprightly and elegant bird.
He moved along the limb with claw and beak. The great distance to the ground made him afraid. The presence of hawks made him still more afraid. Several of them he knew well, for he had watched them secretly from the seclusion he had just left. From a top branch, directly above him, Gooloowee, the White Hawk, looked hungrily at him. From a neighboring tree Wolga, the Blue Falcon, eyed him with a fierce stare; whilst Bilbil, the Sparrow Hawk, was perched beyond, and Jilli-jilli, the common Kite, soared overhead.
In looking up at the latter he almost lost his balance. In a panic he moved along the limb again with claw and beak, and cried to his mother. She still moved on, and, when she could get no farther, flew to another branch. Up he climbed, but he uttered all the while a monotonous, whining cry that had earned him more than one severe smack from his mother's hard bill in the nest. Then she flew to another tree. How he was to get there he didn't know. He raised his crest, stretched his neck, and fidgeted round and round and squawked. There was no branch or vine by which he could connect with her. Evidently he had to trust himself to the air the same as she did. After all, it looked easy; she just opened her wings, flapped them up and down, and away she went. Well--
Taking a tight grip of the limb with his strong claws, he spread his wings and exercised them vigorously. Harder and harder he strove till he almost tore his claws from the wood. In this way he tested their strength and lifting power. A dozen times he was on the point of making the plunge, and each time he barely mustered sufficient courage to let go with his feet. When he finally did so, he flew quite masterly, and alighted successfully in the other tree, where he proudly erected his yellow crest and joyously cackled, as much as to say, "Did you see that?"
Karaway was twenty inches in length, plump and symmetrical, and the whitest and the largest of the white cockatoos. His elongated, recurved, occipital crest was a beautiful deep yellow, and he was sometimes called the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. In addition to this conspicuous helmet, his general snow-white plumage was relieved with pale yellow on the ear coverts, in the centre of the under surface of the wings, and on the basal portion of the inner webs of the tail feathers. His bill was black, powerful, and abruptly curved. His eyes were black; his feet were greyish-brown.
By degrees, he made his way to the side of a quiet lagoon, where, in low, bushy trees, a small company of his kind were camping during the midday hours. They were silent, but not inactive, for they had a mischievous habit, at such times, of snipping leaves and branchlets off the trees, especially off the wild apple, just to test their bills.
Karaway was no sooner amongst them than he was engaged in the same mischief. It was just what he had been wanting for the purpose of exercising his strong bill. The inclination to bite and saw was irresistible--a habit peculiar to almost the whole of the parrot tribe. In numerous places throughout the vast forest, his associates betrayed their camps by the leaves and bark they stripped off, and the scars they left on the branches. Still, though they were immensely superior in numbers, the damage they did was comparatively insignificant to that done by the black cockatoos.
These dusky relatives, numbering seven species in all, moved in small cohorts. They fed on eucalypti seeds, banksia, wood grubs and caterpillars, and, despite their severe pruning of forest trees, did a lot of good in keeping in subjection certain pests. Their flight was heavy, and most had a low, crying call. They laid two white eggs, which were placed deep down in lofty spouts. Two notable features were the marking of the tail and the depth of the bill. The black tail of each had a broad stripe down all but the two central feathers. The stripes of the Banksian were deep vermilion; of Leach's Cockatoo, scarlet; Wyla, the Funeral Cockatoo, freckled brimstone yellow; White-tail, or Baudin's Cockatoo, creamy white. Larawuk, the Great-billed Cockatoo, had the most powerful bill, which was one-and-a-half inches long and three inches deep. He also had the longest crest. The bill of the Karrak, or Western Black Cockatoo, was two-and-three-quarter inches deep; the tail was marked red. The Yellow-eared Cockatoo, who was twenty-four inches in length, and had a light buff-colored band, thickly mottled with grey, was the most showy of the black family. In common with some of his dusky cousins, he flew low on the approach of rain, and uttered a whining cry. To get the grubs in gum and wattle trees he scooped off the bark and cut thick branches right through. So powerful was his bill that he cut down saplings six inches thick, and tore out pieces ten inches long. The Great Palm Cockatoo, who had a large, bushy, black crest, and crimson and yellow on the cheeks, was the only one whose tail was all black. He fed on the tender shoots of palms in northern scrubs.
Besides these seven "black Australians," and six white or rose-tinted, he had one grey relative--the Gang Gang. They made a total of fifteen varieties. Though the Corellas, Galahs and Weejuglas mingled together on the inland plains, the large white birds of the sulphur crest kept always to themselves.
From their midday camp they flew down on to a small plain in twos and threes till only Karaway remained. The journey to the lagoon had fatigued him; he was not going to travel any farther yet, if he could help it. He could see them easily. They were all close together and busily moving about on the ground. Perhaps they would come back soon.
Holding with one foot, he scratched his poll with the other and talked to himself. In the midst of this pleasant occupation, Moru, the Whistling Eagle, alighted on a limb within three feet of him, and his soliloquy ended in a startled screech. With his head thrown excitedly forward, and his crest raised, he edged away with quick side steps, but kept an alert eye on the enemy. When the Eagle advanced, he half opened his wings and his mouth at the same time, and hissed. Still the Eagle advanced. Alternately hissing and ejaculating, he turned nervously from side to side. When the Eagle made a more determined advance, he jerked his head violently towards him, and uttered a sharp, clicking note. Moru halted for a moment, but he was not scared. He came on again. Karaway, unable to back any farther, made a wild dart for a higher branch. After a brief interval the Eagle flew to one still higher. The cockatoo immediately realized the advantage of the position, and, throwing himself into the air, winged desperately towards his companions.
Before he had gone fifty yards the Eagle swooped at him. He dipped almost to the ground, and, in attempting the abrupt turn that would take him sharply aside and upward, he tumbled on to his back in the grass. His frantic gesticulations and loud screams brought the company flocking over him before the Eagle could get round for another swoop.
They gathered him in their midst, and their excited cries drowned his complainings. When they settled again on the plain, he was too upset to feed. He appointed himself sentinel for the flock, and kept a sharp look-out for hawks, whilst the rest regaled themselves on seeds, roots and bulbs.
Towards sundown they mounted high, and, calling loudly to one another, flew some miles away to a retired roosting place on a gentle rise.
They were astir again at dawn. After a repast of eucalypti seeds, roots, and a fungus known as Blackman's bread, they went still farther afield. Of vagrant habits, they travelled hundreds of miles, making temporary homes wherever food abounded. Their kind encircled the continent, extending for a considerable distance inland, though they never ventured into the dry central parts of the country; and, unlike the Magpies and other birds that preserved exclusive colonies, and whose movements were restricted within certain territorial limits, they joined forces with mutual satisfaction with all flocks of their own sort wherever they met them. They frequented the open plains, the cleared lands, and the thinly-timbered, gently undulating country, in preference to the densely-timbered regions favored by the black cockatoos.
Almost daily they gathered at a waterside to drink and bathe--sometimes after the morning meal, sometimes in the afternoon. They always had their quiet midday camp in open forest country by a river or lagoon; and ever, in all seasons, they kept their snow-white coats spotlessly clean. The young Cockatoo, after he had washed and preened himself, put on more airs than the gaudiest parrot that sported amidst gum blossoms. For a couple of weeks his mother assisted in providing him with food; then she cast off all responsibility. He was one of the immense flock, one of a vast socialistic community whose numbers were unlimited.
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