302 CORVIDJE. 



and feed on it, and have observed them feeding like rooks in a 

 ploughed field •" I have myself observed these birds on the short 

 pasture of the marine cliffs. It is further stated by my corres- 

 pondent, that " great numbers of choughs breed in the precipices 

 over the lake in the Commeragh mountains, county of Waterford, 

 about seven Irish miles from the sea, where they are very rarely 

 molested, on account of building in almost inaccessible spots. 

 Here the young were ready to fly on the 6th and 7 th of August, 

 1836 : on the 28th of April, 1841, four of their eggs were pro- 

 cured from this locality." At the Saltee Islands, off the "Wexford 

 coast, and about Howth, near Dublin, they are often met with.* 



I have seen examples of the chough, which were killed at 

 Portpatrick, Wigtonshire, and along the Ayrshire coast ; and have 

 heard the cry of the species, in the evening, about the ruined 

 castle at Ballantrae, in the latter county. In July, 1826, when 

 in the valley of glaciers, on the south side of Mont Blanc, I was 

 attracted by the well-known, though somewhat distant call of the 

 chough, and on looking up, saw an immense flock wending its 

 way towards the pinnacles or aiguilles of that "monarch of 

 mountains." 



The call of the closely allied Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, Temm., 

 likewise an inhabitant of the Alps, is unknown to me, but in the 

 present instance, my attention was arrested by the similarity of the 

 note to that of our native bird. This, to my ear, is very lively and 

 pleasing, and cannot be mistaken for that of the jackdaw. The 

 flight of the chough too is peculiar, though as in others of the 

 Corvidce, the quills are much expanded, and give a deeply fringed 

 appearance to the wing, as the bird flies overhead. A friend re- 

 marks upon the flight as " singularly waving ; they flap their 

 wings, then sail forty or fifty yards, and so on gradually, until they 

 alight." 



Borlase, in his Natural History of Cornwall (p. 243, &c), pub- 

 lished in 1758, gives, in a quaint and attractive manner, a full and 

 interesting account of this bird, which has often the prefix of 

 Cornish to its name. 



* Major T. Walker. 



