ROADRUNNER 39 



H. H. Sheldon (1922a), who also checked the roadrunner's run- 

 ning speed with a speedometer, writes of the incident: "The car 

 gained on the bird until about five yards separated us, and I saw it 

 was running at its utmost speed. I instructed my friend, who was 

 driving, not to press him further, and for fully three hundred yards 

 the bird ran from the big monster in pursuit, the while the speed- 

 ometer registered exactly fifteen miles per hour. Wlien finally we 

 approached very closely, the bird gave vip and flew into a palm, 

 where I plainly saw it, beak agape and apparently very much fa- 

 tigued from the unusual exertion." 



There is no doubt in my own mind that a fully adult roadrunner, 

 can, for short distances, run faster than 15 miles an hour. Athletic di- 

 rectors tell us that an average man (not an athlete) can run 9 yards 

 a second, or about 18 miles an hour. I know I can run as fast as the 

 average man, and I know I have failed many a time to gain on a 

 roadrunner that happened to appear on the road a short distance 

 ahead of me. I distinctly recall catching two young roadrunners 

 (with tails 7 or 8 inches long) in a little gully near Fort Worth, Tex., 

 in about the year 1913. I had quite a chase and might never have 

 caught them had they not been forced to run up a steep embankment. 



Spring. — ^We have seen the roadrunner sneak off through the 

 weeds — a frightened bird. We have seen him capture lizards, snakes, 

 scorpions, centipedes, tarantulas — a veritable monster. But not until 

 we have heard him sing do we know the finer side (as Aldrovandus 

 of old would say) of his nature. On fine spring mornings he sings 

 as the sun rises, and he may continue his fervent if somewhat 

 monotonous performance for an hour or more. His favorite song- 

 perch is the eastern rim of a mesa where, full in the fresh sunlight, 

 he can see far and wide. If there is no mesa, he chooses a dead tree 

 or a high cactus. Here, directing his bill downward until it almost 

 touches his toes, he begins to coo. Coo^ coo, coo, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, 

 ooh, he calls, pumping out the syllables in a hoarse, throaty voice, 

 his head rising a little with each coo, until the bill points upward, 

 the pitch of the song meanwhile dropping gradually lower. So he 

 starts with head low and coo high, and ends vice versa. Cattlemen 

 say that before he begins his song he "lays his beak on the rock." 



The pumped-out series of coos we have just described doubtless is 

 the roadrunner's love song. Before giving it he may parade in a 

 prominent place, strutting with head held stiff and high, and wings 

 and tail drooping. On May 2, 1914, I witnessed what I believe were 

 certain courtship antics of the male before the female not far from 

 Fort Worth, Tex. According to the published account (Sutton, 1922) 

 of this performance, the bird's "wings were spread, and he may have 

 been preening and taking a sun bath, but circumstances * * * 



