Summary

This Long-billed Corellas, Cacatua tenuirostris named "Cocky" was offered to the Museum in 1980 by a family in Croydon. Upon donation the family wrote a letter to the Curator of Ornithology, Alan McEvey describing Cocky's life, which had stretched to 80 or 90 years.

In his early life Cocky lived for many years in a hotel in Bridge Road, Richmond. Eventually he was ordered from the front bar by the police for bad language. Cocky then lived in the back shed of the hotel, where he picked up the talk of the two-up games, the sly grog and illegal betting. "C'mon Bill, put a bob on a horse," he would urge, along with numerous other colourful sayings. Eventually a woman who worked at the hotel as a maid offered to take Cocky home for her 10-year old son. She was the widowed grandmother of the donor and Cocky was handed down in the family for the next 50 years. It seems the son removed Cocky, hitherto immobile, from his small cage and exercised his wings and rubbed his feet with olive oil until he could walk. He would sleep on the boy's bedhead. But he started tearing the skirting boards apart calling; "Rats, rats, scald the buggers!" so he was put in an aviary. When he swore a cup of water was thrown over him. He stopped swearing but still talked until the end. The letter concludes: "I have looked after him for 20 years please take care of our friend."

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