!4 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Family COR VID&. 



THE CHOUGH 



Pyrrhocorax graculus, LINN. 



IN a cage the general aspect of this bird is rather that of a Starling than a 

 Crow ; but on the wing it has a decidedly more Corvine character. Of its 

 distribution outside the British Isles, Howard Saunders says : " In the Channel 

 Islands, especially Guernsey, the Chough is tolerably common, and it breeds in 

 some of the rocky portions of the north-western and west coasts of France, as 

 well as in those of Portugal. It is, however, in inland, mountainous situations, 

 such as some parts of the Alps, the Carpathians, the Parnassus, the Urals, the 

 Appenines, the Pyrenees, and the south of Spain, that it is most abundant, while 

 on the rocky islands of the Mediterranean it is plentiful ; it is also resident in 

 the hill-regions of Northern Africa, Abyssinia, Arabia, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, 

 and Persia, and throughout the mountain ranges of Asia, as far as north-eastern 

 China." 



Although scarcely a migratory species, it is considered capricious, inasmuch 

 as localities long inhabited by it are, for no apparent reason, suddenly abandoned ; 

 in Great Britain this has been especially noticed. In 1868 and 1869, I observed 

 great numbers of Choughs about the cliffs at Clifton, and again between Linton 

 and Ilfracombe, but some twelve years ago a friend who was staying at the latter 

 place had the greatest difficulty in obtaining an egg of the species. Seebohm 

 observes : " It still breeds in Cornwall, the north of Devon, on Lundy Island,* and 

 at many places on the Welsh coast, in Glamorgan, Pembroke, Anglesey, Flint, 

 Denbigh, and possibly on the rocks of the Calf of Man. On the east coast of 

 England, More states (" Ibis," 1865, p. 132) that a few pairs were known to nest 

 near Fast Castle, in Berwickshire, and Hancock corroborates the statement, whilst 

 in the Channel Islands the bird, although local, still breeds. In Scotland it appears 

 to have been much commoner quite recently than at the present time, and to have 

 now quite deserted its inland haunts, being only found on the ocean cliffs." " In 

 Ireland the numbers have also decreased." 



* Howard Saunders, however, says " in 1887 I found that it had almost disappeared from Lundy Island, 

 where it was formerly abundant, owing in a great measure to the ravages of the Peregrine, which, in default of 

 Pigeons, is very partial to Choughs especially the young." 



