2 
CHOUGH. 
lirld from which potatoes were being lifted ; and here they diligently explored the fresh-turned soil; hut 
w hether worms or the smaller roots were the object of their search, it was impossible to decide. At times the 
pair would settle down in the roadway that ran through a small village consisting of a few scattered hovels; 
and here they seemed to have hut little respect for the youngsters who now and then rushed from the dwellings 
and pelted them with stones, as they moved hut a short distance when assailed. They were, however, as 
cunning as the ltook (who is declared to smell powder), as the sight of a doubtful-looking individual with a 
gun was sufficient to put them immediately on guard ; and when once their suspicions are aroused there are 
few birds more wary. 
Though my visit to the parts of the coast where these birds may still be met with was in the autumn, 
I examined several situations in which their nests had been placed and, I believe I may add, in nearly every 
instance, robbed. Ledges in almost perpendicular rock were at times resorted to ; occasionally, however, their 
quarters arc by no means dangerous to reach. I closely inspected two or three cavities among the slabs of 
stone in the rough and broken face of the cliffs, from which young birds had been removed during the past 
season, and where the nests were still remaining. To these a very moderate climber might have made his way 
with but little difficulty or risk. The crumbling sides of the funnel-hole, the well known “ Tol pedn penwith,” 
in the neighbourhood of the Land’s End, are still used as a nesting-place ; and here a few pairs resort at 
roosting-time during the autumn. It is, however, hopeless for them to rear their young, as the natives of the 
fishing-villages in the vicinity make a regular business of taking them, as soon as they can with safety be 
removed. In one or two other localities that are not so well known, it is possible that a brood or two may 
still escape, though I fear, from all I could learn, these favoured spots are few and far between. As I have 
only to plead guilty to causing the death of a pair of Choughs, I can hardly be accused of having accelerated 
their extermination in any very alarming degree. 
The cause of their scarcity on the Cornish coast is not hard to find. There is a great demand for young 
birds ; all that are taken command a ready sale. Consequently, as the nests arc not, as a rule, in situations 
very difficult to be reached by those accustomed to the use of ropes, at the end of the breeding-season 
there arc few beside old birds left. If such wholesale robbery is continued, the result is not difficult to 
anticipate, and its accomplishment can hardly be long delayed. 
In several districts the Chough seems to have become extinct without having suffered any very great 
amount of persecution, unless perhaps the Jackdaws may be responsible for intruding on their haunts. Some 
authors state that these birds, in days gone by, frequented the inland rocks in several of the wildest Highland 
glens ; and local tradition tells the same story, though neither, as far as I am aware, can give reasons for their 
disappearance, or the date at which it is supposed to have occurred. It is a strange fact that now and then 
a wanderer returns to the identical spot that was formerly the home of his race. A few years back a curious 
bird was noticed by a stalking-party in the upper part of Glen Cannich ; and as there was at the moment no 
fear of disturbing the deer, the stranger was cautiously approached and brought down by a rifle-bullet, when it 
proved to be a Chough. Though they were said formerly to have frequented the glen, the time of their departure 
was a mystery even to the oldest inhabitant. 
There are, I expect, few parts of the British Islands, with the exception of the Cornish coast, where the 
whole of the Crow family might be in view at the same time. One afternoon, early in November 1880, 
while waiting near the old mine at Trewarvas for a shot at a pair of Choughs, which were working their way 
along the coast towards their roosting-quarters in the rocky cliffs at llinzey, I was enabled, by turning from 
east to west, plainly to distinguish, by the help of the glasses, no less than two or three representatives of each 
branch of the family. The Choughs previously mentioned were searching for food on a grassy bank that sloped 
down towards the shore ; a pair of Ravens, croaking loudly, hovered round the rocks immediately below where 
I was concealed ; numbers of Jackdaws clustered on the chimney and buildings of the ruined mine ; while at 
