Genus PYRRHOCORAX.

 

 

Y Bs p apa top ‘ -| ov > ee | ; .

Gen. Cuar. Beak shorter than the head, conical, and somewhat bent towards the tip, with a
slight notch at the point. Nostrels basal, lateral, and conical, with fine hairs directed
forwards. ‘ars: and toes strong and robust. _Naz/s strong and hooked. Wings long, the

fourth and fifth quill-feathers the longest.

ALPINE CHOUGH.

Pyrrhocorax Pyrrhocorax.

 

 

Le Choquard des Alpes.

Iv all large families like that of the Corvide, 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 Corvide, 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. nthe 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 Alpe 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.