PYRRHOCORAX.
Black, Crow-like birds, with thin red or yellow bills and feet ; inhabit mountains or sea cliffs; gregarious; food, insects, worms, seeds, berries ; nest in caves or clefts in cliffs, rocks, ruins ; eggs creamy white, occasionally pale green, with faint purplish grey and light and dark brown blotches.
Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax (L.). CHOUGH. Fr. Crave ; Ger. Steinkr5he.
d 9 Black, glossed with steel blue, wings and tail glossed green. Bill curved, red (in young orange brown). Legs and feet red. Wing d 275-313, 9 265-288. Tarsus 50-54. Bill 42-51.
Resident.—Coasts of British Isles except E., \V. France, l'yrenees, Mountains C. and S. Europe from Portugal and Spain
eastwards, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Balearic Isles (accidental), Croatian littoral, Greece, Mountains N.W. Africa and Coasts of Algeria, Caucasus ; also Asia east to Himalayas.
Pyrrhocorax graculus (L.). ALPINE CHOUCH. Fr. Chocard ; Ger. Alpendohle ; I /al. Gracchio.
d 9 Glossy black ; bill yellow, shorter, stouter and straighter than in "pyrrhocorax." Legs and feet red. Wing 253-280. Tarsus 45-47. Bill 2o-25.
Residenl.—Mountains of C. and S. Europe ; Spain, Portugal, Italy, Corsica, Greece, Caucasus ; also W. Asia (Asia Minor to Himalayas).