PYRRHOCORAX. 575 
Genus PYRRHOCORAX. 
Linneus included the Choughs in his genus Corvus; but they had been 
previously separated by Brisson and placed in a new genus, to which he 
gave the name of Coracia. This name cannot be used, in consequence of 
its bearing too close a resemblance to the Linnean genus Coracias, which 
contains the Rollers. The first author after Linnzeus who separated the 
Choughs appears to have been Scopoli, who in 1769 established for their 
reception the genus Gracula. This name must also be rejected, in conse- 
quence of its having been in 1735 applied by Linnzus to the Cormorants, 
and in 1758 by the same naturalist to a genus of Starlings; both which 
names have been so extensively used by later writers as to make it unadvyi- 
sable to retain the name for a third genus. We therefore fall back upon 
the name Pyrrhocorax, which was first used in 1771 by Tunstall in his 
‘Ornithologia Britannica,’ p. 2, and afterwards in 1816 by Vieillot in his 
‘ Nouveau Dictionnaire d’ Histoire Naturelle,’ vi. p. 568. As the Common 
-Chough was the only bird of the genus known to Tunstall, it must be 
accepted as the type. 
The Choughs belong to the long-winged group of the Corvinz, in which 
the tail is always less than three fourths the length of the wing. The 
Choughs are scarcely separable generically from the Crows, but are said 
to have the nostrils placed lower in the maxilla, nearer to its lower edge 
than to the culmen, while in the Crows the position is the reverse. The 
Choughs may be readily distinguished from all the other Corvine by their 
red or yellow legs and bills. From the Orioles they may be separated by 
the covered nostrils, which in those birds are bare and exposed. ‘The bill 
is comparatively slender and somewhat curved; the tarsus is scutellated. 
The Choughs inhabit the southern half of the Palzarctic Region, 
encroaching on the Ethiopian Region in Abyssinia, and on the Oriental 
Region in the Himalayas and China. The genus contains but two species, 
one of which is a resident bird in, and the other very doubtfully recorded 
as a straggler to the British Islands. 
The Choughs are principally inhabitants of mountainous districts, and 
more rarely of rocky coasts. In habits and food they do not appear to 
differ much from their congeners, but are possibly not quite so omnivorous. 
They are shy and wary birds, gregarious at all times, and also freely con- 
gregate with allied species. Their nests, placed in clefts of rocks, are 
made of sticks, roots, hair, moss, wool, &c. ; and their eggs, from four to 
five in number, vary from greenish to pure white in ground-colour, with 
brown spots and purplish-grey shell-markings. 
