CHOUGHS 81 



plumage) will pirouette, fluttering well-extended 

 wings, and giving vent to a curious " chackle," 

 while the male rubs his beak against hers, or even 

 seizes her lower mandible and waltzes round her 

 in crouching attitude. Sometimes they caress like 

 this in mid-air. 



The nest is always in a covered or partially - 

 covered site, and that generally in a cliff, though 

 not necessarily in at all a lofty one. Occasionally, 

 however, one is found in the shaft of a disused 

 mine or in some ruined tower or other building. 

 In the former case, a site is selected in a hole, a 

 slit (horizontal or perpendicular, sometimes in a 

 deep crack between an outstanding pinnacle or boul- 

 der and the main cliff, and so sometimes entirely 

 visible from above), a small, oven-shaped recess, 

 or and very often indeed in a fissure or on some 

 protected shelf inside, and generally near the roof 

 of, some gloomy, wave-washed cave or cavern, 

 either near its entrance or right at its far back in 

 complete shadow. When in a mine or tower, a 

 joist-hole, or a hole caused by the dislodgment of 

 other woodwork or masonry, provides a position 

 for the nest. 



Unlike many of our sea-birds proper and 

 maritime land-species, the Chough appears to 

 evince no decided preference for the upper or lower 

 half of a cliff. Caves it admittedly loves. These 

 are, of course, at the very ankle of the precipice ; 

 but suitable caves are not always found for the 



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