439 



called the Calf of Man. In Scotland it is much less numerous than in England ; and Mr. Robert 

 Gray writes (B. of W. of Scotl. p. 162) : — " It appears to have been at no distant date a much 

 commoner bird than it now is, and to have inhabited inland situations from which it has now 

 utterly disappeared. The Chough is mentioned by Don in his Forfarshire list as a resident 

 species in the mountains of Clova, and is likewise referred to by Pennant, who states that he 

 found it ' in the furthest parts of Glenlyon and Achmore.' About the same period it appears 

 to have frequented the rocks at the Corra-Linn Falls, on the Clyde ; and twenty years after- 

 wards, namely in 1794, the Rev. John Lapslie included the species in his list of birds found in 

 the parish of Campsie, in Stirlingshire. 



" The most recent instance of the bird being met with in an inland locality is one which 

 was shot and preserved at Crowfordjohn, in Lanarkshire, in the winter of 1854. In all these 

 localities the Chough has long ago become extinct ; and the species is now wholly confined to the 

 sea-coast. Yet in many places once distinguished for Red-legged Crows, it has of late years 

 become very scarce. Thus at Burrow Head and the Mull of Galloway on the south-west coast, 

 Troup Head on the north, and St. Abb's Head on the south-east, the bold and precipitous 

 rocks fronting the sea were at one time inhabited by considerable numbers of these birds, while 

 now a few straggling pairs are all that remain ; indeed it may be questioned if a single Chough 

 has been seen at either Troup Head or St. Abb's for the last ten or fifteen years. It would 

 almost seem as if some fatality were connected with the Chough in this country, as in nearly all 

 the old and now deserted haunts of the species which I have visited I can find no apparent cause 

 for its disappearance. 



"That the encroachments of man can have had little or no bearing on the subject is, I 

 think, evident, from* the fact of the Chough's haunts being for the most part remote and 

 inaccessible." It is, he adds, still found on the west coast of Skye, where it breeds in limited 

 numbers ; and on the south coast of Ayrshire, and along the coast of Wigtownshire, extending 

 to the Mull of Galloway, Burrow Head, and the borders of Kirkcudbrightshire it is still 

 sparingly met with, though in some spots where flocks might have been seen twenty years 

 ago, a solitary pair at most remain. In Ireland, Thompson writes (B. of Ireland, i. p. 298), it 

 is " more generally diffused around the rock-bound shores of Ireland than British authors 

 would lead us to believe it is on those of Scotland and England. It may be met with in such 

 localities in the north, east, south, and west of the island." It does not inhabit Greenland, 

 Iceland, the Faeroes, Sweden, or Norway, nor has it been met with in Finland ; but my collector 

 in Archangel assures me that he has seen it there, and describes the bird with great accuracy. 

 Sabanaeff states that it is common in the Ural from Tagela, and is by no means rare in the 

 Ekaterinburg and the Krasnoufim Ural ; but neither Hoffmann nor Eversmann mentions it. 

 Borggreve writes that it does not occur in North Germany, nor has it been met with in 

 Denmark. Baron De Selys-Longchamps inserts it in his work on the fauna of Belgium on 

 the strength of Degland's assertion that he obtained it in the market of Lille in 1825 ; and 

 Degland and Gerbe state that it is merely of accidental occurrence in the north of France, 

 though resident in the Alps, Pyrenees, and the high mountains of Provence. Mr. Howard 

 Saunders informs me that he observed it on the coast of Brittany. Professor Barboza du 

 Bocage speaks of it as being not rare in Portugal; and Dr. E. Rey writes (J. f. O. 1872, p. 145) 



