Genus PYRRHOCORAX. 
Gen. Cuan. Beak shorter than the head, conical, and somewhat bent towards the ti p, with a 
slight notch at the point. Vostrz/s basal, lateral, and conical, with fine hairs directed 
forwards. ars: and toes strong and robust. Nazis strong and hooked. Wings long, the 
fourth and fifth quill-feathers the longest. 
ALPINE CHOUGH. 
Pyrrhocorax Pyrrhocorax. 
Le Choquard des Alpes. 
In all large families like that of the Corvd@, we seldom fail to meet with various anomalous and isolated 
forms, which appear to stand out from the general group, amalgamating with none of the principal or more 
numerously filled sections into which the family is divided, but appearing like links of a chain connecting the 
family with others widely aberrant from it. Though we cannot in every instance trace a due succession of 
these links, the continuity of the chain being often interrupted, these forms seem like radiations from a given 
centre, branching out in lines tending in some instances towards even opposite points. The Nutcracker, for 
example, which belongs to the family of Corv:de, indicates in its form, habits, and manners, an approximation 
to the Picide too strong to be overlooked by the discerning naturalist: the Red-legged Chough is by many 
regarded as tending towards the Promeropide, while the present bird claims an affinity with some of the 
Merulide. In the instances we have here adduced, we may observe that each example is the type and sole 
known representative of their respective genera with the exception of the Nutcracker, the genus to which it 
is assigned containing two species. 
The natural situations which the Alpine Chough inhabits are the high rude and precipitous elevations of 
the Alpine districts of central Europe. During the summer it seldom descends far below the line of 
perpetual snow, but in severe winters it is sometimes driven from its inaccessible heights to the lower 
mountain ranges, more perhaps in order to obtain food than to avoid the severity of the cold. 
Berries, grains, insects, worms, &c., constitute the food of the Alpine Chough; it is, indeed, almost 
omnivorous in its appetite. 
Its nest is usually made in a cleft or fissure of the rock, and sometimes in the chinks of the walls of old 
buildings among the Alpine heights. The eggs are from three to five in number, of a dull white blotched 
with yellowish brown. 
When adult, the plumage of this bird is of a uniform black; the beak orange; the tarsi and toes vermilion, 
the under sides of the latter being black ; irides dark brown. 
Both sexes are alike. In the young of the year the black is less pure; the beak is blackish, the base of 
the under mandible being yellow; and the tarsi are black. After the first moult the beak becomes yellowish, 
and the tarsi pass by shades of brown to red, their colour in the female being more obscure. 
We have figured an adult of the natural size. 
