PYBRHOCOEAX GRACULUS 7 



Family COlWIDiE. 



PYRRHOCORAX GRACULUS (Linnseus). 



CHOUGH. 



Corvus graculus, Linn, hii/st. Nat. i, p. 158 (1766). 

 Pyrrhocorax graculus, Temm. Man. d'Orn. i, p. 122 (1820). 

 Graculus graculus, Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. iii, p. 146. 

 Trypanocorax frugilegus, Loche, Expl. Sci. Akj. Ois. i, p. 113 (1867). 

 Fregilus graculus, Kocnig, J. f. 0. 1888, p. 171. 



Description. — Adult male, spring, from Marocco. 



Entire plumage rich glossy black, with slight violet-blue reflections on 

 the head, back, scapulars, neck and breast, and greenish reflections on the 

 wings and tail. 



Iris brown ; bill and feet dark coral-red. 



Total length 15o0 inches, wing 12, culmen 2-10, tarsus 210. 



Adult female similar to the male. 



Young birds have the plumage duller, and the bill and feet are of an 

 orange-colour. 



I have not myself met with the Chough in Tunisia, nor do recent 

 travellers in the Regency seem to have done so, but Salvin, when 

 travelling in the Eastern Atlas some years ago, appears to have found 

 the species not uncommon in some of the more mountainous districts. 



In the Province of Constantine the Chough is by no means uncom- 

 mon, and though perhaps somewhat local in its distribution, it is 

 probably to be met with throughout the entire Atlas range. Canon 

 Tristram came across the bird in Algeria in two spots far distant from 

 each other, but both on the edge of the Sahara, one of these localities 

 being the cliffs of Bokhari, south of Algiers, and the other the gorge 

 of El Kantara, south-east of Constantine. Loche records the species 

 from the neighbourhood of Djelfa and Boghar, but says that it is only 

 to be found on the highest mountains of Algeria. 



In Marocco the Chough is not at all uncommon. Favier states 

 that it is to be found in large flights near Tetuan, where Mr. Tyrwhitt 

 Drake also observed it, and Colonel Irby mentions having seen a great 

 many of the species about the cliffs of Abyla, or Apes' Hill, opposite 

 to Gibraltar (Orn. Strs. Gib. p. 80). I myself have a specimen of this 

 bird from Tilula in the Great Atlas, which was obtained by Mr. E. 

 Dodson m May, 1897. 



