CHOUGH 83 
vations were probably largely made in Man. Jardine 
writes T. C. Heysham (Macpherson, Fauna of Lakeland, 
p. 152), referring to his Manx visit: ‘ We were rather late 
to procure the eggs of the birds, which we regretted on 
account of the Red-legged Crows, a most abundant bird, 
but all with young. Had he procured eggs, he would not 
have written, as he did in his above-quoted work, that the 
egos of the Chough ‘are of a verditer or bluish green, 
spotted and blotched with blackish brown, some specimens 
nearly resembling those of the Jackdaw, and apparently 
subject to nearly the same variations.’ Forbes, writing 
about the same time as that of Jardine’s visit, also mentions 
the Red-legged Crow as common. 
Yarrell (first edition, 1843, art. ‘Chough,’ vol. ii. p. 59) 
says: ‘Mr. Wallace, of Douglas, in the Isle of Man, at the 
southern extremity of which, being very rocky, these birds 
breed in security, and from whence that gentleman had the 
kindness to bring me two skins in February last, tells me 
that he has seen them following the plough to obtain the 
grubs and insects that are thus exposed.’ 
Train (1845) states: ‘The Red-legged Choughs, called 
Kegs by the Manks, are very numerous on the Calf.’ 
It has since been recorded in most standard works on 
British birds as inhabiting Man.’ Yarrell’s fourth edition, 
1876-82 (ii. 255), remarks: ‘It was formerly resident in the 
Isle of Man, particularly its southern part, and the rock called 
the Calf of Man, where it used to breed, and may perhaps 
still do so,’ 
(see Ussher in Birds of Ireland). Ofthe few Manx specimens I have seen, none 
were of this type. 
2 *Philornis’ (1867) strangely says: ‘ Formerly the Chough (Fregilus graculus) 
was so abundant that its eggs were used as an article of food (!), and even in 
later times it was by no means an uncommon bird among the hills and upon the 
sea-coast. Now I may safely assert that it is an extinct species, well known 
indeed in the memories of the present generation of men, but itself very rarely if 
ever seen.’ 
