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."