148 The CiioroH 



Family— CO RMD.E. 



'I'liK Chough. 



Pyi rliocoiax i;)acn/i(s, LiNN. 



IN a cape the general aspect of this bird is rather tliat of a Starling than a 

 Crow; Init on the wing it has a decidedly more Corvine character. Of its 



distribntion outside the British Isles, Howard Saunders says: — "In the 

 Channel Islands, especially Guernsey, the Chough is tolerably common, and it 

 breeds in some of the rocky portions of the north-western and west coasts of 

 France, as well as in those of Portugal. It is, however, in inland, mountainous 

 situations, such as some parts of the Alps, the Carpathians, the Parnassus, the 

 Urals, the Appenincs, the Pyrenees, and the south of Spain, that it is most 

 abundant, while on the rocky islands of the Mediterranean it is plentiful; it is 

 also resident in the liill-regions of Northern Africa, Abyssinia, Arabia, Asia Minor, 

 the Caucasus, and Persia, and throughout the mountain ranges of Asia, as far as 

 north-eastern China." 



Although scarcely a migratory species, it is considered capricious, inasmuch 

 as localities long inhabited by it are, for no apparent reason, suddenly abandoned; 

 in Great Britain this has been especially noticed. In 1868 and 1869, I observed 

 great numbers of Choughs about the cliffs at Clifton, and again between Linton 

 and Ilfracombe, but some twenty years ago a friend who was staying at the latter 

 place had the greatest difficulty in obtaining an egg of the species. Seebohm 

 observes : — " It still breeds in Cornwall, the north of Devon, on Lnndy Island,* and 

 at man}' places on the Welsh coast, in Glamorgan, Pembroke, Angelsey, Flint, 

 Denbigh, and possibl}' on the rocks of the Calf of Man. On the east coast of 

 England, More states ("Ibis," 1865, p. 132) that a few pairs were known to nest 

 near Fast Castle, in Berwickshire, and Hancock corroborates the statement, whilst 

 in the Channel Islands the bird, although local, still breeds. In Scotland it appears 

 to have been much commoner recentl}' than at the present time, and to have 

 now quite deserted its inland haunts, being only found on the ocean cliffs." 

 " In Ireland the numbers have also decreased." 



* Howard Sauiideis, however, says — "in 1SS7 I found Uiat it had almost disappeared from Lutidj- Island, 

 where it was formerly alnindaiit. owint; in a great measure to the ravages of the Peregrine, which, in default 

 of Pigeons, is very partial to Choughs — especially tlie youug." 



