1498 



THE PERCHING BIRDS 



Among the Alps and other mountain ranges of Central Europe the 

 >ug red-billed chough is in many cases replaced by the Alpine chough 

 (G. alpinus) which has a yellow instead of a red beak, and is somewhat smaller in 

 dimensions. Mr. Fowler says that the Alpine chough is the characteristic corvine 

 of the Alps, as it also is of the Apennines; and its lively chatter, breaking suddenly 

 on vast and silent solitudes, recalls to memory the familiar jackdaw. The Alpine 

 chough nests among the crags of its native precipices; the eggs being four or five in 

 number, and in color white, varied with dirty yellow mottlings. This chough is a 

 recognized article of commerce, and as such is frequently exported to Europe as a 

 cage bird. 



Chough 



PANDER'S CHOUGH THRUSH. 

 (Two-fifths natural size.) 



We now come to a small but interesting group of birds, of somewhat 

 "rh h doubtful affinity, though probably not distantly related to the choughs, 

 from which they are at once distinguished by the relative shortness of 

 their wings, which fall short of the tip of the tail by more than the length of the 

 metatarsus. They are further distinguished by the' possession of a peculiar style 

 of coloration, and also by -their inferior size. Comparatively little is known of the 

 habits of the chough thrushes, these birds being found only in certain parts of 

 Central Asia, and having rarely come under the notice of field naturalists. The 

 whole of the four species known to science inhabit desert regions and sterile 

 plains. Of these the first discovered was Pander's chough thrush (Podoces 

 pandert), and although many years have elapsed since its existence became known, 

 it is still very rare in collections. Nor is this surprising since its home is the 

 I^ower Oxus, and the inaccessible deserts of Turkestan. It is not a gregarious 



