CHOUGH 85 
How far the theory of the noxiousness of the proximity of 
the Jackdaw to the Chough is correct there hardly seems 
to be here any evidence. They appear rarely to come 
into contact, and when found near each other I have noticed 
neither association nor enmity, though I have seen 
Choughs in noisy flocks skirmish with both the Grey Crow 
and the Kestrel. Mr. Graves, however, has observed them 
intermingle freely and amicably when feeding in a stubble 
field, but when disturbed the Choughs at once separated 
from the others, and flew in a different direction. The 
same observer has seen the Chough drive a Jackdaw from 
the immediate neighbourhood of its nesting site, though 
the latter was breeding not more than fifty yards away. 
Nowhere in Man is the Chough more abundant than on 
a line of steep brows which fall from rocky hilltops to 
sea-cliffs, the latter of no great height, but picturesquely 
broken and foliaged with a wild luxuriant growth of willow, 
brier, honeysuckle, lady-fern, osmunda, and tutsan. From 
the roofs of the numerous caves hang gigantic fronds of 
hart’s-tongue, and all their crevices are bright with the 
glossy varnished green of Aspleniwm marinum. Along the 
. seaward face of the ridge there is no cultivation, nor is 
there upon it an inhabited house, and no boat lies upon its 
beaches, rough with boulders and quartz pebbles. On those 
brows one has never long to wait to hear the sharp ex- 
plosive cry which even at a great distance distinguishes 
the Chough, and to see the graceful floating and hovering 
flights in which the birds cross some deep gully or descend 
to the rent and water-lapped rocks below. The Chough 
seemingly does not, even when most abundant, breed in 
colonies like the Jackdaw, and it may again be that in its 
apparent desire for seclusion during nesting operations we 
have another clue to its scarcity. The nests, often difficult 
to locate, and sometimes all but impossible of access, vary 
