86 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



The Chough's cries are rather of the Jackdaw 

 order, but are far clearer, more metallic, more 

 melodious, and shriller. The ordinary note is a 

 single kwaar, koear, or kwar-ar, the corresponding 

 cry with the nestlings used as a summons for 

 food being more modulated and sounding more 

 like /aar, quickly iterated and resembling the 

 mewlings of a litter of very juvenile kittens. 

 Other of its notes are chow, kwow-wow-wow- 

 wow, kwuk-uk~uk, a sharp quek, and a short, 

 subdued, tremulous, and guttural quarr. 



The adult Chough's plumage has already been 

 described, but quite full plumage is not, I think, 

 obtained until the bird's second autumn-moult. 

 Anyhow, with a pair kept captive, the really red 

 bill and legs had not been acquired at the age of 

 nearly a year, those parts then still possessing the 

 orange-wash of immaturity ; and as it is a fact that 

 I have still to meet with or hear of a pair of 

 breeding Choughs lacking the full insignia of totally 

 red bill and legs, one may fairly conclude that the 

 species fails to breed until nearly two years old. 

 Moreover, in some Chough districts, I have cer- 

 tainly seen parties of the birds in nest-time out of 

 all proportion numerically to the recognised 

 breeding- stock. Assuredly, some of these sus- 

 pected non-breeders have had orange-red bill 

 and legs. 



When first hatched, young Choughs are blind, 

 remaining so for four or five days. To begin with 



