1774 



THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



chase one of these birds on horseback for a distance of a mile or more at full 

 speed, when the cuckoo, though still in advance, would suddenly stop and fly up 

 among the upper limbs of some stunted tree or bush near the roadside, and the 

 rider having kept the bird in view all the way would dismount and easily take the 

 exhausted bird from its perch alive. 



THE ROAD RUNNER. 

 (One-fourth natural size.) 



The last subfamily of the cuckoos is represented by the so-called 



savana and guira cuckoos, three of which belong to one genus, while 



Cuckoos t ^ ie fourth constitutes a genus apart. Distinguished from all other 



cuckoos by having only eight tail feathers, these birds are further 



remarkable for their eggs. Externally these eggs are blue, covered with chalky 



white scratches, produced by contact with the lining of the nest; and it appears that 



this blue color belongs only to the outer covering, so that when this is removed the 



true eggshell, which is white, is revealed. The guira cuckoo (Guira} has a very 



slender beak, and a crest; the plumage being brown streaked with black, the under 



surface buff, and the back white, while the length of the bird is about eighteen 



inches. It inhabits Brazil and Paraguay. The members of the other genus are 



black, and have an extraordinary bill with a kind of high and narrow keel on the 



upper mandible, looking as if it had a ridge along it. Of the three species, the 



