J. he rvOacl IvUnner (Geococcyx Calijomianus) 



By Gerard Alan Abbott 



Length : About 20 inches. 



The range of the Road-runner is very restricted and includes the southwestern 

 United States from Texas to the Pacific Ocean. It is also a native of the larger 

 part of Mexico, and it is found as far northward as southern Utah. It is prac- 

 tically a resident of all but the northern portion of its range. 



This peculiar bird has several common names, all more or less suggestive of 

 its habits. Some of the more striking of these common names are the Ground 

 Cuckoo, the Chaparral Cock, the Lizard Bird and the Snake-killer. The name 

 Road-runner was given this bird because of its terrestrial habits and the rapidity 

 wath which it moves over the ground, where it spends much of its life searching 

 for its food. This consists of insects, snakes, lizards, snails, worms and even small 

 rodents and young birds. It destroys vast numbers of grasshoppers and beetles, 

 and one observer states that he found in the stomach of one a garter snake that 

 was fully twenty inches long. 



Major Charles Bendire has given the following excellent account of his obser- 

 vations of the habits of this species : "Road-runners are ordinarily rather shy 

 and suspicious birds, and not as often seen as one would think, even where com- 

 paratively common. Within the United States they are most abundant along the 

 southern borders of Texas and Arizona, and in southern California. Notwith- 

 standing their natural shyness, they are inquisitive birds, and where they are not 

 constantly chased and molested will soon become used to man. One of these birds 

 paid frequent visits to my camp, often perching on a mesquite stump for half an 

 hour at a time within twenty yards of my tent. While so perched it would usually 

 keep up a continuous cooing, not unlike that of the mourning dove, varied now 

 and then by a cackle resembling that of a domestic hen when calling her brood's 

 attention to some choice morsel of food. This call sounded like 'dack, dack, dack,' 

 a number of times repeated. Another peculiar sound was sometimes produced by 

 snapping its mandibles rapidly together. While uttering these notes its long tail 

 was almost constantly in motion and partly expanded, and its short wings slightly 

 drooped. In walking about at ease the tail is somewhat raised and the neck partly 

 contracted. When suddenly alarmed the feathers of the body are compressed and 

 it trusts almost entirely to its legs for escape, running surprisingly fast. While 

 running it can readily keep out of the way of a horse on a fair gallop on com- 

 paratively open ground, and should the pursuer gain too much on the bird it sud- 

 denly doubles on its course and takes advantage of any thickets or broken ground 

 in the vicinity, and is soon lost to sight. Its flight is apparently easy, and, consid- 

 ering its short wings, is rather swift." 



The fleetness of the Road-runner is shown by the statement of an eye-witness, 

 who, when in southern California, saw one of these birds chased by ranchmen for 

 a distance of a mile or more at a high speed, when the l)ird, though still in advance, 



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