CORVID.E. 83 



ornis, but now, owing to persecution, in great danger of 

 becoming ere long extinct. The Raven is such a powerful, 

 wary, and hardy bird, that he is likely to survive for some 

 years to come, although his numbers annually diminish ; 

 but the Cornish Chough is, we fear, within measurable 

 distance of complete disappearance from our county list. 

 The Crows are all wary, sagacious, and powerful birds, 

 furnished with a pickaxe of a beak, which in the Raven 

 is indeed a formidable weapon. They may be termed 

 omnivorous, as there is hardly anything which they can 

 swallow which they will not digest, and they are ubi- 

 quitous in their search after food, being met with on 

 moors, in meadows, in woods, by the banks of inland 

 streams and rivers, as well as on the sands and oozes and 

 on the cliffs by the sea-shore. One of them, common in 

 the North, and on our eastern coasts in the winter time, 

 the Royston or Hooded Crow, was, in our memory, a 

 regular visitor in the autumn to our shores, but fro in 

 causes which can only be surmised has deserted the West 

 of England, and is to-day only a very rare straggler. 



Chough. Pijrrhocorax graculus (Linn.). 



[lled-legged Crow.] 



PtC'sideut in small numbers in some places on the north coast of the 

 county, but it no lunger breeds on Lundy Island, where it was once 

 y)leutitul. On the south coast it is now hardly more than a casual 

 visitor of rather rare occurrence, though it has been known to breed once 

 or twice. The only instance in -which, to our knowledge, it has been met 

 with far inland is one that was seen by Miss lladfurd near J^ydford about 

 lySl. It was, probably, passing from one coast to anuther across the 

 county. 



The history of the Devonshire Choughs during the last few decades is 

 indeed a sad one. Whde the birds were gradually diminishing from 

 Bomo unexplained natural causes, perhaps owing to the Jackdaw having 

 become the dominant species, their final disappearance has been rapidly 

 accelerated through the greed of collectors for their eggs and skins. 



(Jn Lundy, where thirty years ago we found Chouglis fairly numerous, 

 and confining themselves to the neighbourhood of the dwell iiig-houso for 



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