ROADRUNNER 49 



lure the intruder away. M. French Gilman (1915) describes a 

 mother bird that was "very anxious about the eggs," that "ran around 

 close to me in a mammalian sort of way, flat on the ground, tail 

 dragging, and head stretched out in front only about three inches 

 from the soil. She did not look like a bird at all, and though making 

 no fluttering demonstration, her antics were calculated to excite curi- 

 osity and distract attention from the nest." 



J. K. Pemberton (1916) describing a "variation of the broken-wing 

 stunt" by a roadrunner, writes: 



As I was climbing near the nest the bird hopped to the ground. Immediately 

 it began to squirm, scramble, and drag itself away across an open space and in 

 full view. The bird was simulating a broken leg instead of the conventional 

 broken wing! The bird held its wings closed throughout the demonstration 

 though frequently falling over on its side in its enthiisiasm. The whole per- 

 formance was kept entirely in my view, the bird gradually working away from 

 the tree until it was some 35 feet distant when it immediately ran back to the 

 base of the tree and repeated the whole show. I had been so interested up to 

 now that I had failed to examine the nest which when looked into contained 

 five young probably a week old. When I got to the ground the bird continued 

 its stunt rather more frantically than before and in order to encourage the 

 bird I followed, and was pleased to see it remain highly consistent until I was 

 decoyed to a point well outside the grove. Here the bird suddenly ran away 

 at full speed and in a direction still away from the nest. 



Voice. — ^We have already described the spring song of the road- 

 runner. Howard Lacey (1911) tells us that the bird "makes a loud 

 chuckling crowing noise * * * and also a cooing noise that 

 might easily be mistaken for the voice of some kind of dove ; it also 

 makes a sort of purring sound in its throat, ijeriy.^ pen^p., ^err/?." 



As for this "purring sound," I am not at all sure that it is vocal. 

 One of the roadrunner's most characteristic alarm sounds is not a 

 cry at all; it is an incisive, clackety noise made by rolling the 

 mandibles together rapidly and sharply. Even young birds just out 

 of the nest can produce this sound, though the softness of the bill 

 muffles the sharpness somewhat. 



Young birds in the nest make a buzzing sound when begging for 

 food. Well do I remember a nestful of these "infant dragons" that 

 I found in April 1914. Concerning these I have written (1936) : 

 "Accidentally I touched an upturned beak and four great mouths, 

 v/obbling uncertainly on scrawny necks, rose in unison. I jerked 

 back my hand — the pink-blotched lining of those mouths had an 

 almost poisonous appearance. From the depths of the small frames 

 came a hoarse, many-toned buzzing which gave the impression that 

 a colony of winged insects had been stirred to anger." 



Enemies. — There is little doubt in my mind that the roadrunner's 

 worst enemy is man. Man wants quail to shoot. Man sees a road- 

 runner chasing young quail or finds a young quail in a roadrunner's 



