Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 421 



may be met with in such localities in the north, east, south, 

 and west of the island. 



The basaltic precipices of the north-east are admirably adapted to 

 choughs, and about the promontory of Fairhead these birds especially 

 abound. On one occasion, when visiting this place and the head- 

 lands in the immediate vicinity of the Giant's Causeway on the same 

 day (8th of June) during the breeding-season of these birds, I re- 

 marked choughs only about the former locality, and jackdaws only 

 about the latter, both species being numerous in their respective 

 quarters : the choughs too were wonderfully tame in this instance, 

 permitting our approach within about twenty-five paces*. About 

 Horn Head, in the north-west of the county of Donegal, I saw many 

 choughs and jackdaws in the month of June, and was told by the 

 gamekeeper of the district that they never bred in company nor as- 

 sociated together there ; the nest of the chough was stated by him to 

 be placed so far within the clefts of rocks as to be difficult of access. 

 The nearest place to Belfast tenanted at present, or within the last 

 few years, by a pair or two of these birds, is a range of marine cliffs 

 called the Gobbins, just outside the northern entrance to the bay. 

 Here on the 28th of May a few years ago, a nest of young birds 

 which had made known their proximity to the summit of the rocks 

 by their calls for food, was doomed to perish by a visitor to the place 

 wantonly shooting both their parents. The only instance in which 

 I have had personal knowledge of choughs wandering far from their 

 usual haunts, and to a place in no respect suited to them, was on the 



* In Dr. J. D. Marshall's memoir, before alluded to, on the statistics and 

 natural history of the basaltic island of Rathlin (lying off the north of the 

 county of Antrim), it is remarked of the chough, "This is called by the 

 islanders, the jackdaw, and is by far the most numerous species on the 

 island. In the month of July, I found them everywhere associated in large 

 flocks, at one place frequenting inland situations, and at another congregated 

 on the sea-shore. They had just collected together their different families, 

 now fully fledged, and were picking up their food (which consisted chiefly 

 of insects), either on the shore, in the crevices of rocks, or in the pasture 

 fields. Mr. Selby mentions that the chough will not alight on the turf, 

 if it can possibly avoid it, always preferring gravel, stones, or walls. In 

 Rathlin, its choice of situation seems to be but sparingly exhibited, as I 

 found it frequenting the corn and pasture fields, in even greater numbers 

 than along the shores. * * * They breed on the lofty cliffs overhanging 

 the sea; the eggs are of a whitish colour, speckled at the larger end with 

 brown. The chough is of a restless, active disposition, hopping or flying 

 about from place to place ; it is also very shy, and can with difficulty be 

 approached. Temminck says, that the legs of this bird, before the first 

 moult, are of a dark colour, while Montagu affirms, that they are orange- 

 coloured from the first. The young which I examined were about six 

 weeks old, and in them the bills were of a brownish orange ; not of that 

 brilliant colour which marks the adult bird, but certainly exhibiting enough 

 of the orange to lead us to conjecture that they would become completely 

 of that colour after the moult. The legs could not be called ' orange- 

 coloured,' for although there was a tinge of that colour, yet the brown 

 predominated. I should, therefore, agree with Temminck, in stating the 

 legs and feet to be ■ dark-coloured' in the young birds." 



