CHOUGH. 145 



It frequently rolls over in its flighty and falls to a consider- 

 able distance, after the manner of the Raven. 



Merrett^ writing in 1667, speaks of it as found along the 

 whole coast, from Cornwall to Dover. Gilbert White, 

 writing in 1773, states that it bred on Beachy Head, and 

 on all the cliffs of Sussex. Markwick, that this bird fre- 

 quents the South Downs about Beachy Head and East- 

 bourne; and Mr. Woolgar, who died in 18.21, says in his 

 catalogue of the birds of the environs of Lewes, printed in 

 Horsfield^s history of that town, that it "builds on the 

 clifls on the coast. Common at Beachy Head.^^ Mr. Knox 

 (O. R. p. 213) says, — " This was certainly its last stronghold ; 

 but it disajipeared from the coast about twenty years ago." 

 It is in evidence that Choughs were given occasionally by 

 Cornish gentlemen to their friends in other counties, and Sir 

 Thomas Gage, in his ' History of Hengrave,^ records one thus 

 sent by a Carew to Kytson, of Hengrave, in Suffolk. I hear 

 from Mr. Dennis, some time rector of East Blatchington, that 

 a Chough was brought to him on January 29th, 1868, by one, 

 Joe Barker, who had just shot it between Seaford Head and 

 the Puck Church. It was in good condition and plumage. 



There is a legend that the Choughs, which foremrly bred 

 there, were derived from a pair which had escaped from con- 

 finement ; but Mr. Dennis informs me that he never heard 

 the story, and believes that it must have originated from the 

 fact that a gentleman turned out a pair of Magpies, which 

 bred for years on a solitary tree in front of the town of Sea- 

 ford. The gentleman paid blackmail to the boys not to 

 molest them. When he left, they were soon destroyed, and 

 the tree has long since perished. 



Mr. Dutton, writing in the ' Zoologist" for 1864 (p. S099), 

 remarks : — '■' An old shepherd says, ' Them there red-legged 

 Crows was common at Beachy Head aud Bell Tout about 

 forty years ago.^ " 



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