"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.'"