20 



PACIFIC COAST AVIP^AUNA No. 15 



unskinned. and wlicii the supply failed v.-onld accept pieces of jack rabbit 

 or beef. 



We were told of Roadruiiiiers killing' young (|uail and other birds for 

 food, l)ut never saw any indication of interest on the part of ours in the flock 

 of birds which came to our feeding table and around our tent. One day. how- 

 ever, on going 1o a ti'a]) set for live rabbits — a wire cage tilted up on a figure-4 

 trigger and baited with viznaga — a headless, mutilated Canyon Towliee was 

 found under the edge of the trap and Roadrunner tracks all around the out- 

 side. Soon after, another dead Towhee was found in the trap. This time the 

 top of the cage was flattened down and the bird below almost beheaded. The 

 Great Horned Owl w^ould have been suspected but a regular rabbit trail of in- 

 criminating Roadrunner tracks — two toes pointing forward and two back — 

 close around the trap gave indisputable evidence. Perhaps the hunter was 

 especially hard pressed for food on those days, for after an interval during 

 Avhich, for the protection of vicsoIpucus, the trap was kept set only at night, 

 when it was again set in the day time, although the Towhees promptly got in, 

 they remained unharmed. 



On February 9, a second Roadi'unner was seen with our camp bird. After 

 the first week in March. Avhen the lizards came out and we were away too 

 much to feed the birds regularly, we rarely saw them, but on April 26, the 

 love song was heard. 



On February 15, a Roadrunner was found just before sunset roosting in 

 the saucer-shaped hollow in the top of a barrel cactus (viznaga), which stood 

 about three feet above the ground and had lost its cap of yellow fruit. The 

 curved thorns of the ribs of the barrel afforded protection from prowling 

 coyotes and a thorny mesquite branch overhead might well have discouraged 

 any winged prowler even though endowed with keen enough eyes and brain 

 to connect the long narrow line of the closed tail with the dull, streaked, mo- 

 tionless form in the cup. 



On the morning of March 15, on our way to Continental, before the sun 

 had taken the chill out of the air, two Roadrunners were seen in the tops of 

 two mesquite trees, apparently trying to get warm. The unique tracks had 

 been seen arul the characteristic snapping of a bill heard, March 0, in the dry, 

 sandy bed of the Santa Cruz River at Continental; and near there, on Febru- 

 ary 3. 1923, one of the Roadrunners was noted by Taylor. 



In the si)7'ing of 1923, Mrs. Nicholson wrote of finding one that she took 

 to })e our tame Roadrunner dead on our old camp site. Anotliei- one. she said, 

 had become just as tame, coming regularly to be fed with her chickens. 



Coccyzus americanus occidentalis. California Cuckoo 



One was taken by Nelson, .June 29, 18S4, at Gardner's Ranch; another hy 

 Little, Howell's assistant, August 16, 1918, at Continental; while a third was 

 seen by Howell, August 19, 1918, in the mesquite forest, thirteen miles south 

 of Tucson. They were also noted by Vorhies, at McCleary's Ranch (Nichol- 

 son's) in the summer of 1919 and on June 25, 1922. 



