THE CHOUGH. 199 



seen there, but is supposed to have dwindled in that locality 

 to a single pair."-^ Mr. Eobert Cowe, Oldcastles, near 

 Chirnside, who is a native of the parish of Coldiugham, and 

 lived for many years in the vicinity of Fast Castle and 

 St. Abb's Head during the early part of this century, has 

 informed me that between 1820 and 1830, when he was a 

 boy attending school in the village of Coldingham, he often 

 saw the Red-nebbed Crow about the rocks of the sea- coast 

 immediately to the west of Petticowick, and that it built in 

 a steep precipice there ; also that his school-fellows some- 

 times took the young ones to be kept and tamed like 

 Jackdaws. 



The Chough appears to have become extinct about St. 

 Abb's Head and Fast Castle between 1846 and 1855, and 

 to have remained so ; for had this not been the case, the 

 bird would surely have been seen after the last-mentioned 

 date by fishermen and others ; including persons well 

 acquainted with its appearance, who have been long 

 resident in the neighbourhood of St. Abb's Head and Fast 

 Castle, and who have from time to time passed by its 

 former haunts at all hours of the day, from early dawn until 

 dark, for the last thirty years. Notwithstanding numerous 

 inquiries, I have not been able to find any person who 

 has seen it on the Berwickshire coast within the period 

 mentioned. The great increase in the number of Jackdaws 

 round the coast has probably been the cause of its disap- 

 pearance. 



This species is rather less in size than the Rook, to 

 which it bears a resemblance, but it is more elegant in 

 form. When near, it is at once distinguished by its red 

 bill and feet. 



1 Birds of East- Lothian, p. 18. 



