ROADRUNNER 37 



through the cactus clumps, and is gone. Once more only a glimpse ! 

 Once more only the retreat of a timid desert creature that appears 

 to be half bird, half reptile. 



But lie in wait for the roadrunner! Watch him race across the 

 sand, full speed, after a lizard. Watch him put out a wing, change 

 his course, throw up his tail, change his course again, plunge head- 

 long into a clump of cactus, and emerge, whacking his limp victim 

 on the ground. Watch him jerk a slender snake from the grass, 

 fling it into the air, grasp it by the head or neck, pummel it with 

 his hard mandibles, and gulp it head first. Watch him stalk a 

 grasshopper, slipping quietly forward, making a sudden rush with 

 wings and tail fully spread, frightening the doomed insect into 

 flight, then leaping 3 or 4 feet in air to snatch it flycatcherwise in 

 his long bill. Watch the roadrunner for an hour at his daily business 

 of catching food and you will deem him among the most amazing 

 of all the desert's amazing creatures. Snake-killer indeed ! Chapar- 

 ral cock ! Not by sitting quietly on fence posts, not by slipping shyly 

 from the path, has the roadrunner earned for himself these blood- 

 stirring names ! 



So odd, so even funny a creature is the roadrunner that it is natural 

 to caricature him a bit in describing him. This J. L. Sloanaker 

 (1913) has done when he writes: 



Of all the birds on our list the Roadrunner is doubtless the most unique; 

 indeed, he is queer, and would certainly take first prize in the freak class at the 

 Arizona state fair. He is about two feet in length, with a tail as long as his 

 body, color above brown streaked with black, bare spaces around eyes blue and 

 orange, feathers of head and neck bristle-tipped, eyelids lashed, * * * iiig 

 whole plumage coarse and harsh. Could you imagine such a looking creature? 

 Try and think of a long striped snake on two legs, a feather duster on his head 

 and another trailing behind ; or a tall, slim tramp in a swallow-tailed coat, 

 a black and blue eye, and a head of hair standing straight on end! There 

 you are ! 



Elliott Coues (1903) describes roadrunners as "singular birds — 

 cuckoos compounded of a chicken and a Magpie." Mrs. Bailey 

 (1902) considers them among the "most original and entertaining of 

 western birds." Other writers call them "odd," "anomalous," and 

 "unique." They are. 



Throughout much of his range the roadrunner is known as the 

 chaparral cock, or merely the chaparral. He also is called lizard 

 bird, ground cuckoo, cock of the desert, and, as we have stated above, 

 snake killer. The Mexicans call him the paisano or the correo del 

 cmnino. The first of these names means compatriot or fellow country- 

 'man; according to some writers it expresses affectionate regard, and 

 is to be freely translated "little friend." The latter is almost the 

 equivalent of our name roadrunner. 



