266 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



desire for a pet chough was the cause of its decline 

 and final disappearance all round the south and west 

 coasts of England, except at one spot near Tintagel 

 where half a dozen pairs still exist only because 

 watchers appointed by the Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds are always on the spot to warn 

 off the nest-robbers during the breeding season. 

 But of the chough in captivity or as a domesticated 

 bird we know little now, as no records have been 

 preserved. I have only known one bird, taken from 

 a North Devon chff about forty years ago, at a 

 house near the coast ; a very beautiful pet bird with 

 charming, affectionate ways, always free to range 

 about the country and the chffs, where it associated 

 with the daws. It was the last of its kind at that 

 place, and I do not know if it still hves. 



Next to the chough the jay comes nearest to the 

 daw mentally of all our crows, and as he excels 

 most of our wild birds in beauty he would naturally 

 have been a first favourite as a pet but for the fact 

 that it is only in a state of nature in which he is like 

 the daw — ^lively, clever, impish ; in captivity he is 

 more like the magpie and afiiliates even less than 

 that bird with his human associates. In confinement 

 he is a quiet, almost sedate, certainly a silent bird. 

 He is essentially a woodland species ; all his graces, 

 his various, often musical, language, with many 

 imitations of bird and animal sounds, and his 



