Koo 



By FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY 



KOO ; for so the Roadrunner who came familiarly to our tent in southern 

 Arizona named himself by the call with which he usually announced 

 his presence.* He was so surprisingly tame that I asked our good 

 neighbor, the ranchman's wife, if she had been the cause. He sometimes got 

 into her garden, she said, and she would catch him and put him out over the 

 fence. The first time he was terrified and tried to force his way out through 

 the wire mesh, but the next time, having found that she did him no harm, 

 when he saw her coming he ran into a corner of the fence, crouched down, 

 and waited for her, letting her pick him up and submitting quietly while she 

 stroked him. 



He was often seen near the ranch watering-tanks and probably got water 

 from dripping pipes. But what did he get to eat? His summer food, such as 

 grasshoppers, crickets, scorpions, centipedes, lizards, and snakes were mostly 

 housed in safe underground quarters for the winter. Mice were still to be had 

 but most of these were nocturnal. He might easily miss a meal. 



His first appearance in camp was at a truly psychological moment, for not 

 only did our tent contain cages of numerous live rodents which were being 

 studied by the Mammalogist, but a number of white-footed mice had been 

 caught the night before and were waiting to be disposed of. So, holding up 

 one of the delectable furry morsels for the alert, long-tailed visitor to see, the 

 Mammalogist invited him to the feast. Being treated like a rational personage, 

 Koo, on seeing the mouse coming through the air toward him, instead of run- 

 ning away, frankly accepted the invitation and started toward the mouse, 

 actually walking up within a few yards of his benefactor for it. But with the 

 prize once in his bill, discretion evidently seemed the better part of valor, for, 

 turning tail, with body and tail held at the swiftest horizontal running level, 

 Koo raced up the slope out of sight. 



After that, all through January and February, and until it grew warm 

 enough to bring out a goodly supply of lizards, Koo was a frequent and often 

 daily visitor, some days staying around camp a great deal. He would always 

 take small mammals thrown him with avidity, and when two live pocket mice 

 were set free some distance up the trail to test his fleetness and hunting skill, 

 he was off like a flash in pursuit, catching them before they could get to cover. 

 But whatever savage hunting instincts he possessed to flatter us with our 

 evolutionary superiority, his behavior in camp, and it would seem under great 

 temptation, was most exemplary. To be sure, he did take especial note of one 

 of our caged kangaroo rats when it was being photographed in a glass box 

 out-of-doors, taking up his position on a stone close beside us and sitting fluffed 

 up comfortably but betraying expectant interest by certain keen glances and 



*As the plumage of the sexes is alike, the determination was arbitrary. 



(260) 



