This dates from the pre plastic-wrapper days when Arnott's biscuits were sold from a tin embellished with a parrot emblem. The cocky was on it and not in it, so the phrase describes a loser or someone left out of something.
Probably the most easily recognisable of all Australian trade marks, the Arnott's Rosella sits on a t-shaped perch, a position the colourful parrot has occupied for over a hundred years on millions of biscuit tins.
But how did the cocky get on the tin in the first place?
The secret meaning of the trade mark lies in the Arnott's company motto, as well as in the famous expression popular for over a hundred years: 'Polly wants a cracker.'
The image is in fact a rebus, a word puzzle, that may be described as follows: On This T (perch) The Best Polly I See. In other words, Arnotts company motto: 'Honesty is the best policy.'
The laughing jackass
It is seldom that the Australian language yields up its secrets so reluctantly as it does with the word 'Kookaburra'. For indeed, 'Kookaburra' is considered to be an Aboriginal word meaning 'laughing jackass'. Doubters who are dissatisfied with this explanation and wish to test it pragmatically need only pore over early inquiries in and around the Eastern seaboard, study the correspondence of Italian and French scientists, and examine their translations. A keen ear will immediately perceive that 'Kookaburra' comes from a secret portion of indigenous culture unhappy about the discovery of Australia followed by the White invasion, and to whose ears the cry of the laughing jackass is in fact an onomatopoeic "Cook-a-Bugga! Cook-a-Bugga!"
The real Road-runner
Like ostriches, cassowaries and kiwis, the emu prefers not to take to the air except perhaps when plunging off sharp cliffs. An emu, however, is faster than most ostriches, cassowaries, and kiwis, and unlike them tends to cause National Geographic photographers to go: "Heeeeey, where's that bloody bird?" because the emu holds the land speed record for birds at 50 kilometres or 31 miles per hour.
![[RT pic]](cover21.gif)