CORVID.^. 



THE CHOUGH. 



Pyrrhocorax graculus (Linnpeus). 



The Chough is not only a local but also, apparently, a very 

 capricious species ; localities formerly inhabited by it being some- 

 times abandoned, without any assignable reason. In England at 

 the present day it is not known to breed to the east of the cliffs of 

 Dorsetshire, while westward as far as Cornwall its distribution is 

 irregular. In North Devon there were formerly many small 

 colonies ; but in 1887 I found that the bird had almost disappeared 

 from Lundy Island, where about forty pairs used to nest, owing in 

 a great measure to the Peregrine, which, in default of Pigeons, is 

 very partial to Choughs — especially the young. On the sea-cliffs 

 and in some inland localities of Wales it is not rare, while it is still 

 resident in the Isle of Man. In Scotland it has long ago quitted 

 St. Abb's Head, and has almost vanished from the Wigtownshire 

 coast and western mainland, but it breeds on Islay, Jura, and other 

 islands of the Inner Hebrides, up to Skye, and was obtained in 

 September 1896 near Stornoway; though of accidental occurrence 

 on the east side and inland. In Ireland it nests along the rocky 

 coasts and sometimes in the mountains of the south, west and north. 



