::::::::3v NEAR THE TWIN VOLCANOS vfe:::::::: 



while beneath, the ruddy hue melts insensibly into pink 

 and pearl-gray. The cuckoo had the badge of his 

 family in the quadruple gradation of the tail feathers, 

 each one tipped with black and white. The tail ex- 

 presses every emotion of the bird, now closing to a line 

 and following the creepings of its owner ; now spread- 

 ing to a parti-coloured fan, as he hovers before a leaf 

 and snatches an insect ; now raised high over his back, 

 as he stops for a watchful glance at us. We never 

 tired of watching these beautiful birds, so quiet, so 

 gentle of movement, and so soft in colour. When 

 quietly feeding they occasionally utter a soft meLr, and 

 when suddenly alarmed, as at the tumult of the jays, 

 a loud chirj), like the alarm-note of the robin, escapes 

 them. 



Those stranofe unlike cousins of the cuckoos — the 

 Roadrunners — never descended into our green har- 

 ranca, but in the straggling mesquite near the top of 

 the clifPs, their slim forms, mottled and coloured with 

 an indescribable pattern of grays and browns, were not 

 uncommon. What mighty steel springs must be in 

 their slender legs ! ahvays crouching, as a runner start- 

 ing to sprint, and they are indeed runners and leapers 

 of the highest rank. One sailed into view one morning 

 from over a boulder, changed locomotion from wings 

 to feet, without an instant's hesitation, and leaped 

 eight feet straight upward to another boulder, where 

 he squatted and w^atched us, his crest nervously rising 



«4 177 •>: 



