THE CHOUGH.
I think I may here describe a bird, which, although he was not our property, was watched with much interest by us, and which we never met with but once.
It was a Chough.
It belonged to an officer who was living in the same barracks; and we first saw it perched on the window-sill of his kitchen.
"Is that a crow?" asked my sister, pointing to it, as we stopped to examine it.
"That cannot be a crow," I answered; "its legs are yellow, as well as its beak; and it is more slender, and a more bluish sort of black."
When we approached and offered to touch it; it did not draw back or appear shy, but allowed us to stroke its back and look at it quite closely.
It was a very handsome bird; its plumage beautifully glossy; its claws hooked and black; and its tongue very long. It was pecking at a plate of food that was near it; but did not appear very hungry.
Presently, the officer's servant came to the window, and we enquired what it was.
"A Cornish Chough," was the answer.
We had never seen one before; indeed, knew nothing about that sort of bird. We had, indeed, heard its name in an old song or glee, called the "Chough and Crow;" or that begins with those words.
So we asked Mamma about it when we went in, and she showed us an account of it, in which we found that it is not at all common everywhere, like a crow; but that it only lives in the cliffs of Cornwall, Devonshire, and Wales; and has sometimes, but rarely, been seen about Beachy Head, and in no other part of Europe, excepting the Alps. So that it is really a very uncommon bird.
The same account said that they could be taught to speak like a jackdaw.
But we never heard this one say anything, or make any noise, except a sort of call or croak, with which he answered the servant who attended to him.
We always stopped to stroke and pat him when we went out to walk; and he was a great pet with the soldiers, and went about some years with the regiment.
He showed his intelligence and quickness in a very curious way.
During the time that the regiment was quartered in Scotland he was lost; he had either wandered out of the barrack-gate, and had failed to find his way back again; or he had been picked up and carried away by some thief. He was, however, never seen or heard of for many months, and was given up as lost.
The regiment then removed to Edinburgh; and two or three soldiers went to visit a sort of zoological garden in the outskirts. There were a great number of cages, among other things; and the attention of the men was attracted to one of these cages by the violent fluttering and exertion made by the inhabitant to get out.
On coming closer to the cage, they perceived that the prisoner was the old Cornish Chough; and they asked the keeper if it was lately that they had confined it, since it seemed so uneasy.
The man said that it had been in that cage for a long time, and never had been otherwise than perfectly quiet and satisfied.
They wished to take it away, saying they knew the bird's former master; but the owner refused to part with it, and the soldiers passed on.
On their way back, the keeper was still standing watching the bird; who, as soon as the soldiers came again in sight, fluttered and dashed itself violently against the bars.
The man said that losing sight of them, it became quiet, and sat dolefully on its perch; but the moment it again saw them, it exerted all its strength to reach them.
There is no doubt that the poor bird recognised the red-coats, among which it had formerly lived, and wished to go to his old friends.
The soldiers told the officer how they had discovered his old pet; and he purchased it from the keeper of the garden.
The poor Chough manifested great pleasure at being again in the barrack kitchen, and followed the fortunes of the regiment until his master's death, when we lost sight of the yellow-billed yellow-legged Cornish Chough.