140 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
Family—COR VIDE. 
THE CHOUGH 
Pyrrhocorax graculus, LINN. 
N 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.” ; 
