DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CHOUGH. 121 



now ill course of publication, leaves the matter for 

 further investigation.* 



The Jackdaw may or may not be to blame; but so 

 far as this county is concerned, I believe he can be 

 easily acquitted. My correspondents, and more 

 especially those who are old enough to remember 

 when the Choughs were plentiful, agree in testifying 

 that the gun first fchinned their numbers. Mr. Dick- 

 son was especially emphatic on this point as the real 

 cause of the disappearance of the Colvend Choughs. 

 To shoot a Chough from the cliffs was reckoned a 

 "decent sort of feat" in his earlier days, and game- 

 keepers and others were continually trying their 

 hand at it. I have i^ositive proof that it was the gun 

 that swept off the few pairs that survived up to a 

 comparatively recent period. I am aware that Mr. 

 J. J. Armistead, the well-known pisciculturist, a\'1io 

 resides near one of their former haunts, has expressed 

 the opinion (Zoolocjist, 1881, p. 194) that "the Choughs- 

 were certainly never driven away by man;" but in 

 face of information exactly to tlie contrary I have 

 received from old residenters in the same locaHty, I 

 cannot help thinking that Mr. Armistead's conclusion 

 has been formed on insufficient grounds. 



There seems to be no likelihood that our fine 

 sea-cliffs will ever be re-populated with this hand- 

 some and lively bird. The Chough is rarel}', if 

 ever, migratory, and the nearest places where it is 

 still found — the coast of the adjoining county of 

 Wigtown, and the coast of Cumberland right opposite 

 us across the Solway — will soon be as destitute of 

 the species as we are now. The latest authority on 

 the Avifauna of Cumberland (Birds of Cwniberland, 

 by "Glaramara," in Carlisle Journal) says the Chough 

 may be only " occasionally seen " along the coast. 



* By the way, Mr. Seebohra, who is ruthlessly wrathful over 

 the minor and major mistakes made by his fellow-ornithologists, 

 coolly states in the work just mentioned, under his history of 

 the Chough (vol. i., p. 577), that "in Kirkcudbrightshire a few 

 pairs are still known to breed." This has certainly not been 

 the case for 15 years, at the very least. 



