THE CHOUGH. 
309 
distance inland, and has been observed in the act of following the plonghman after the manner 
of the rook, busily engaged in picking up the grubs that are unearthed. Sometimes it will 
feed upon berries and grain, but evidently prefers animal food, pecking its prey out of the 
crevices among the rocks with great rapidity and certainty of aim, its long and curved beak 
aiding it in drawing the concealed insects out of their hiding-places. In England, the county 
Cornwall is the chief nesting-place of the Chough, but it is also found in many other portions 
of the British Isles; and the celebrated lines in “King Lear” are too familiarly known to 
need quoting as a proof that the Chough was in Shakespeare’s time an inhabitant of the Dover 
cliffs. It is also found in many other parts of the world, having been observed even in Asia, 
and several districts of Africa. 
The character of the Chough is not unlike that of the magpie, and is so admirably 
delineated by Montagu in an account of a tame specimen in his possession, that it must be 
related in his own words : — 
“ His curiosity is beyond bounds, never failing to examine anything new to him. If the 
gardener is pruning, he examines the nail-box, carries off the nails, and scatters the shreds 
about. Should a ladder be left against the wall, he instantly mounts and goes all round the 
top of the wall; and if hungry, descends at a convenient place and immediately travels to 
the kitchen-window, where he makes an incessant knocking with his bill till he is fed or let 
in : if allowed to enter, his first endeavor is to get upstairs, and if not interrupted, goes as 
high as he can, and gets into any room in the attic story ; but his intention is to get upon the 
top of the house. He is excessively fond of being caressed, and would stand quietly by the 
hour to be smoothed, but resents an affront with violence and effect both by bill and claws, 
and will hold so fast by the latter that he is with difficulty disengaged ; is extremely attached 
to one lady, upon the back of whose chair he will sit for hours, and is particularly fond of 
making one in a party at breakfast, or in a summer’s evening at the tea-table in the shrubbery. 
“His natural food is evidently the smallest insects ; even the minute species he picks out 
of the crevices of the walls, and searches for them in summer with great diligence. The com- 
mon grasshopper is a great dainty, and the fern chaffer is another favorite morsel : these are 
swallowed whole ; but if the great chaffer be given to him, he places it under one foot, pulls it 
to pieces, and eats it by piecemeal. Worms are wholly rejected, but flesh, raw or dressed, 
and bread he eats greedily, and sometimes barley, with the pheasants and other granivorous 
birds occasionally turned into the garden, and never refuses hempseed. He seldom attempts 
to hide the remainder of a meal. 
“ With a very considerable share of attachment, he is naturally pugnacious, and the hand 
that the moment before had tendered him food and caresses will repent an attempt to take 
him up. To children he has an utter aversion, and will scarcely suffer them to enter the 
garden. Even strangers of any age are challenged with impunity ; he approaches all with 
daring impudence, and so completely does the sight of strangers change his affection for the 
time, that even his favorites and best benefactors cannot touch him with impunity in these 
moments of evident displeasure.” 
As is the case with nearly all coast birds, the Chough builds its nest at no great distance 
from the sea, generally choosing some convenient crevice in a cliff, or an old ruin near the 
sea-shore. The nest is always placed at a considerable elevation from the ground, and is 
made of sticks lined with wool, hair, and other soft substances. The eggs are usually five in 
number, and in color they are yellower than those of the crow or rook, but are spotted with 
similar tints. The general color of the Chough is black, with a rich blue gloss, contrasting 
well with the vermilion-red of the beak, legs, and toes. The claws are black, and the eyes are 
curiously colored with red and blue in concentric circles. The total length of the adult male 
Chough is about seventeen inches, and the female is about three inches shorter. 
