Mr J. H. Buchanan on the Choufjh in Scotland. 97 



is plentiful in the neighbourhood of the Lizard Point, where 

 it breeds. Apparently its numbers had much diminished, for 

 Mr Edmonds, in his " History of the Land's End District," * 

 published in 18G2, says that "this bird has now entirely 

 disappeared from the Land's End district; the last jjlace 

 where it built is the ' funnel ' of Tol-Pedn-Penwith." 



It will, doubtless, seem somewhat anomalous that, in at- 

 tempting to sketcli tlie distribution of the chough in Nortli 

 Britain, I should have dwelt so long on its history in Corn- 

 wall ; but I felt sure that it was necessary to do so in order 

 to treat fully of its occurrences in Scotland. At one time 

 there is no doubt that the bird was comparatively abundantly 

 distributed in many inland districts, breeding in similar 

 situations to those presently occupied by the jackdaw. In 

 the second edition of " Pennant's Tour in Scotland," the 

 chough is referred to as breeding " in the farthest parts of 

 Glenlyon and Auchmore ;" but in the "Statistical Account" of 

 these districts, published about thirty years later, no mention 

 is made of the bird. Mr Gray, in his " Birds of the AVest 

 of Scotland" (p. 162), states that, about the same time as 

 Pennant wrote, " it appears to have frequented the rocks at 

 the Corra Linn Falls on the Clyde." In vol. xv. of the " Old 

 Statistical Account of Scotland," published in 1795, the Eev. 

 James Lapslie, in treating of the ornithology of the parish 

 of Campsie, states that " the red-legged crow is but scarce 

 with us ; we seldom meet with above a pair or two in the 

 whole range of the Campsie Falls ; when we do meet with 

 them, it is amongst the jackdaws, of which there are a con- 

 siderable number which haunt our rocks." The chough 

 must, however, have entirely disappeared from this locality 

 early in the present century, as no mention is made of its 

 presence in the " New Statistical Account" published in 1839. 

 I have been told that in bygone years it frequented the 

 Ochil Hills, but, unfortunately, I have no evidence as to the 



* The Land's End District ; its Antiquities, Natural History, Natural 

 Phenomena, and Scenery: also a brief Memoir of Richard Tresithick, C.E. 

 By Richard Edmonds, late of Penzance, Secretary for Cornwall to the 

 Cambrian Archseological Association; with a Map, Six Plates, and several 

 Woodcuts. 8vo, pp. 266, and index. London and Penzance, 1862, 

 VOL. VIL G 



