124 BRITISH LAND BIRDS. 



and colour, is the KED-LEGGED CROW, or CHOUGH, 

 never seen in most parts of our island, though in 

 its favourite haunts often very abundant. It is al- 

 most exclusively confined to the sea-coast, where it 

 inhabits the highest and most inaccessible por- 

 tion of rocks or cliffs, about which it walks 

 securely by means of its strong legs, toes, and 

 claws. The plumage is uniformly black, glossed 

 with blue, the beak and legs vermilion red, the 

 claws shining black. It is easily distinguished 

 from the true crows by the form of the beak, 

 which is bent downwards. 



At the southern end of the Isle of Man these 

 birds build in security. In Cornwall, they are 

 also found, and an old writer of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury says the Cornish chough was so great a 

 favourite in those days, that some of the most 

 ancient families bore these birds in their coat 

 armour. But the locality assigned them by 

 poetical authority is the celebrated cliff which 

 now bears the name of the master-poet, Shake- 

 speare ; he says, in reference to its height 



" The crows and choughs that wing the midway air 

 Show scarce so gross as beetles." 



Like jackdaws, the choughs are easily tamed, 

 and make amusing pets. Col. Montagu kept a 

 bird some years in his garden. It was never 



