THE CHOUGH. 31 



Genus PYRRHOCORAX Tunst.* 



Pyrrhocorax Tunstall, Orn. Brit., p. 2(1771 — Monotype, the Chough). 



Contains CJiough and Alpine Chough. Former has longer, 

 red, and more curved, latter shorter and whitish, bill. In both, 

 plumage is entirely black. Sexes alike in colour, but bill of female 

 smaller. Tarsus covered with an unbroken lamina in front and 

 behind (" booted ") ; only quite young birds show traces of a 

 division into several scutes. Unnecessary to split the two species 

 into two genera, and we follow Dresser, ReichenoA\', and many 

 others, who unite them in one genus. 



PYRRHOCORAX PYRRHOCORAX 



12. Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax (L.) — ^THE CHOUGH. 



Upupa Pyrrhocorax Linnseus, Syst. Nat., ed. x, i, p. 118 (1758 — Coasts 

 of England and Egypt. Restricted typical locality : England). 

 Pyrrhocorax gracubis^ (Linnaeus) Yarrell, ii, p. 252 ; Saunders, p. 231. 



Chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax). 



* The oldest generic term is Coracia Brisson, Orn. i, p. 30, type, according 

 to tautonymy, op. c, ii, p. 3, the Chough. The name has generally been 

 rejected because it is so much like Coracias. This is no reason, however, for 

 its rejection, but it may be argued that it is a faulty transliteration of 

 Coracias, a name which is preoccupied, in another sense, by Linnaeus. 

 As a synonym should be quoted Comix Forster, Syn. Cat. Brit. B., 

 p. 5, 1817. Forster mentions under the genus Comix " C. rufipes,'''' the 

 Chough, and C. monedula, the Jackdaw. No action having hitherto been 

 taken with regard to the name Comix, I designate as its type C. pyrrhocorax 

 {rufipes Forst.), to avoid this name bemg taken up for the Jackdaw. — E.H. 



t It is difficult to understand how this name came to be accepted 

 for the red-billed Chough, as the diagnosis says : " rostro pedibusque luteis." 

 On the other hand, the Upupa Pyrrhocorax of 1758 is undoubtedly the Chough, 

 the diagnosis being: "Upupa atra, rostro pedibusque rubris " ; in 1766, 

 however, Linnaeus, apparently having forgotten what he had already written 

 quite correctly — except for the genus — in 1758, gave under the name of 

 Corvus Pyrrhocorax a mixture. — E.H. 



