40 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



led me to think otherwise. Now and then he bowed, and affected a 

 close examination of his feet, only to raise his head again, drop his 

 wings, lift them again and spread his tail. * * * Before I knew 

 it [I] was discovered * * * and then, without wings spread, 

 leaped from the dead branch to the next lower one, whence on out- 

 stretched wings he sailed to the ground. I rushed up to where he 

 had been, and was surprised to see two birds scuttling * * * off 

 through the vines." 



Nesting. — The nest, which usually is situated in a low tree, thicket, 

 or clump of cactus 3 or 4 to 15 feet from the ground, is a rather 

 compact, though not deeply cupped affair, about a foot in diameter 

 and 6 to 8 inches high, with foundation of sticks and lining of leaves, 

 grass, feathers, mesquite pods, snakeskin, roots, and dry flakes of 

 cattle and horse manure. It is sometimes well hidden, sometimes 

 not. In the Black Mesa country of the far western Oklahoma Pan- 

 handle John Semple and I found several nests in small cedar trees 

 that grew on the mesa sides. Here the nests were well hidden, and 

 since cedar trees were numerous our usual method of locating nests 

 was watching the parent birds. 



Earely the nest is built on the ground. Such a nest, containing 

 six eggs, was found by W. W. Brown in Sonora, Mexico, on May 15, 

 1905. This nest is preserved in the John E. Thayer collection. 



A. C. Bent writes me of a nest found by F. C. Willard in Cochise 

 County, Ariz., on April 23, 1916, "7 feet from the ground on a pack- 

 rat's nest in a dense thicket of hawthorn." This nest was "merely 

 a few leaves, etc., in a slight hollow in the rubbish of the rat's nest." 

 While Mr. Bent was hunting ravens' nests among the abandoned oil 

 derricks in the Kettleman Hills, Calif., his companion, J. R. Pember- 

 ton, told him that roadrunners sometimes built their nests in the lower 

 parts of the derricks, using the sticks dropped by the ravens. Grif- 

 fing Bancroft (1930) describes a nest with complete set of two eggs 

 found in Lower California in the heart of a date palm * * * so 

 well concealed that it could not be seen until much of the foliage 

 had been cut away." 



Eggs. — Eoadrunner nests contain, as a rule, three to five or six 

 eggs. Occasionally two eggs comprise a complete set; and sets with 

 as many as 12 eggs have been recorded. Where large numbers of 

 eggs are found in one nest it is supposed that more than one female 

 has deposited them. Coues (1903) describes the eggs as "ovate or 

 elliptical, white in ground color with an overlying chalky film which 

 may take a slight yellowish tint, ranging in length from 1.45 to 1.75, 

 averaging 1.55 x 1.20. They are laid at considerable intervals; in- 

 cubation begins as soon as a few are deposited, and is believed to 

 last 18 days for each egg. The development of the chicks is rapid ; 



