Feet and Legs 373 



western part of the United States much of the vegetation 

 consists of prickly cacti and thorny mesquite, most un- 

 pleasant to perch upon, and here we find the Road-runner, 

 a kind of ground cuckoo, who has the fore-and-aft toe 

 arrangement of his arboreal relations, but whose terres- 

 trial life has developed remarkable powers of running 

 and leaping. One of these birds can outstrip a horse 

 for a hundred yards or more and, almost without effort, 

 can leap upward ten or twelve feet, to all appearances 

 unaided by its wings. 



The owls can move their outer toes backward or for- 

 ward at will, thus being able to assume the arrangement 

 of toes both of a crow and of a parrot. However the 

 yoke, or two-and-two, plan is the one most commonly seen 

 among these birds. With such an automatic vise-trap 

 ready to descend silently and with deadly swiftness upon 

 him, the little mouse in the grass has indeed need to be 

 ever on the alert. The talons of owls are curved and 

 under the control of tendons of great strength. Their 

 chief use is to capture living prey and then to hold it firmly 

 while it is torn to pieces by the beak. 



The deserts and plains where the Road-runner dwells 

 are also the home of the Burrowing Owl, Fig. 351, which 

 finds in its sharp little talons admirable picks and shovels, 

 certainly a novel use for yoked toes. The feet and toes 

 of birds are, in zero weather, their most vulnerable points 

 (except their eyes), and they are most liable to be frozen. 

 In the black wastes of the frozen boreal regions, the Arctic 

 Owl is able to defy the intense cold, by means of a furry 

 covering of hair-like feathers, which extends to the very 



