Austral English. Edward Ellis Morris
it <i>Cocatua eos</i>.
White C.—
<i>Cacatua galerita</i>, Lath.
White-tailed C.—
<i>Calyptorhynchus baudinii</i>, Vig.
See also <i>Parrakeet</i>.
1839. T. L. Mitchell, `Three Expeditions, vol. ii. p. 62:
"We saw to-day for the first time on the Kalare, the redtop cockatoo (Plyctolophus Leadbeateri)."
1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition,' c. viii. p. 272:
"The rose-breasted cockatoo (<i>Cocatua eos</i>, Gould) visited the patches of fresh burnt grass."
Ibid. p. 275:
"The black cockatoo (<i>Calyptorhynchus Banksii</i>) has been much more frequently observed of late."
1857. Daniel Bunce, `Australasiatic Reminiscences,' p. 175:
"Dr. Leichhardt caught sight of a number of cockatoos; and, by tracking the course of their flight, we, in a short time, reached a creek well supplied with water."
1862. G. Barrington, `History of New South Wales,' c. ix. p. 331:
"White cockatoos and parroquets were now seen."
1890. `Victorian Statutes, Game Act, Third Schedule':
"Black Cockatoos. Gang-gang Cockatoos. [Close season.] From the 1st day of August to the 10th day of December next following in each year."
1893. `The Argus,' March 25, p.4, col. 6:
"The egg of the blood-stained cockatoo has not yet been scientifically described, and the specimen in this collection has an interest chiefly in that it was taken [by Mr. A. J. Campbell] from a tree at Innamincka waterholes, not far from the spot where Burke the explorer died."
(2) A small farmer, called earlier in Tasmania a <i>Cockatooer</i> (q.v.). The name was originally given in contempt (see quotations), but it is now used by farmers themselves. Cocky is a common abbreviation. Some people distinguish between a <i>cockatoo</i> and a <i>ground-parrot</i>, the latter being the farmer on a very small scale. Trollope's etymology (see quotation, 1873) will not hold, for it is not true that the cockatoo scratches the ground. After the gold fever, <i>circa</i> 1860, the selectors swarmed over the country and ate up the substance of the squatters; hence they were called <i>Cockatoos</i>. The word is also used adjectivally.
1863. M. K. Beveridge, `Gatherings among the Gum-trees,' p. 154:
"Oi'm going to be married
To what is termed a Cockatoo—
Which manes a farmer."
1867. Lady Barker, `Station Life in New Zealand,' p. 110:
"These small farmers are called cockatoos in Australia by the squatters or sheep-farmers, who dislike them for buying up the best bits on their runs; and say that, like a cockatoo, the small freeholder alights on good ground, extracts all he can from it, and then flies away, to `fresh fields and pastures new.' … However, whether the name is just or not, it is a recognised one here; and I have heard a man say in answer to a question about his usual `occupation, `I'm a cockatoo.'"
1873. A. Trollope, `Australia and New Zealand,' vol. ii. p. 135:
"The word cockatoo in the farinaceous colony has become so common as almost to cease to carry with it the intended sarcasm. … It signifies that the man does not really till his land, but only scratches it as the bird does."
1882. A. J. Boyd, `Old Colonials,' p. 32:
"It may possibly have been a term of reproach applied to the industrious farmer, who settled or perched on the resumed portions of a squatter's run, so much to the latter's rage and disgust that he contemptuously likened the farmer to the white-coated, yellow-crested screamer that settles or perches on the trees at the edge of his namesake's clearing."
1889. `Cornhill Magazine,' Jan., p. 33:
"`With a cockatoo' [Title]. Cockatoo is the name given to the small, bush farmer in New Zealand."
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `Miner's Right,' c. xliii. p. 377:
"The governor is a bigoted agriculturist; he has contracted the cockatoo complaint, I'm afraid."
1893, `The Argus,' June 17, p. 13, col. 4:
"Hire yourself out to a dairyman, take a contract with a rail-splitter, sign articles with a cockatoo selector; but don't touch land without knowing something about it."
<hw>Cockatoo</hw>, <i>v. intr</i>. (1) To be a farmer.
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `Squatter's Dream,' c. xx. p. 245:
"Fancy three hundred acres in Oxfordshire, with a score or two of bullocks,and twice as many black-faced Down sheep. Regular cockatooing."
(2) A special sense—to sit on a fence as the bird sits.
1890. Rolf Boldrewood, `A Colonial Reformer,' c. xviii. p. 224:
"The correct thing, on first arriving at a drafting-yard, is to `cockatoo,' or sit on the rails high above the tossing horn-billows."
<hw>Cockatooer</hw>, <i>n</i>. a variant of <i>Cockatoo</i> (q.v.), quite fallen into disuse, if quotation be not a nonce use.
1852. Mrs. Meredith, `My Home in Tasmania,' vol. ii. p. 137:
"A few wretched-looking huts and hovels, the dwellings of `cockatooers,' who are not, as it might seem, a species of bird, but human beings; who rent portions of this forest … on exorbitant terms … and vainly endeavour to exist on what they can earn besides, their frequent compulsory abstinence from meat, when they cannot afford to buy it, even in their land of cheap and abundant food, giving them some affinity to the grain-eating white cockatoos."
<hw>Cockatoo Fence</hw>, <i>n</i>. fence erected by small farmers.
1884. Rolf Boldrewood, `Melbourne Memories,' c. xxii. p. 155:
"There would be roads and cockatoo fences … in short, all the hostile emblems of agricultural settlement."
1890. Lyth, `Golden South,' c. xiv. p. 120:
"The fields were divided by open rails or cockatoo fences, i.e. branches and logs of trees laid on the ground one across the other with posts and slip-rails in lieu of gates."
<hw>Cockatoo Bush</hw>, <i>n</i>. i.q. <i>Native Currant</i> (q.v).
<hw>Cockatoo Orchis</hw>, <i>n</i>. a Tasmanian name for the Orchid, <i>Caleya major</i>, R. Br.
<hw>Cock-eyed Bob</hw>, a local slang term in Western Australia for a thunderstorm.
1894. `The Age,' Jan. 20, p. 13, col. 4:
"They [the natives of the northwest of Western Australia] are extremely frightened of them [sc. storms called <i>Willy Willy</i>, q.v.], and in some places even on the approach of an ordinary thunderstorm or `Cock-eyed Bob,' they clear off to the highest ground about."
<hw>Cockle</hw>, <i>n</i>. In England the name is given to a species of the familiar marine bivalve mollusc, <i>Cardium</i>. The commonest Australian species is <i>Cardium tenuicostatum</i>, Lamarck, present in all extra-tropical Australia. The name is also commonly applied to members of the genus <i>Chione</i>.
<hw>Cock-Schnapper</hw>, <i>n</i>. a fish; the smallest kind of <i>Schnapper</i> (q.v.). See also <i>Count-fish</i>.
1882. Rev. I. E. Tenison-Woods, `Fish of New South Wales,' p. 41:
"The usual method of estimating quantity for sale by the fisherman is, by the schnapper or count-fish, the school-fish, and squire, among which from its metallic