24 



eggs and if there is not 

 enough room for all 

 the eggs, green leaves 

 are placed over the 

 first layer and the rest 

 of the eggs are laid on 

 top. The I6wer ones 

 usually do not hatch 

 and the upper ones 

 are sometimes laid at 

 such different intervals 

 that fresh eggs and 

 young birds are found 

 in the same nest. The 

 exact apportionment 

 of duties between the 

 females has not yet 

 been discovered but it 

 is believed they all 

 help in incubating and 

 in feeding the young. 



Another curious and 

 entertaining bird of 

 the cuckoo family is 

 the road-runner or 

 "snake killer" of Mex- 

 ico and the arid re- 

 gions of our South- 

 west. It is sandy-brown in color, broadly streaked, and 

 nearly half of its two feet in length is taken up by its 

 enormously developed tail. Its long legs permit it to 

 cover the ground without the use of its wings about as 

 fast as a horse can trot. In fact it never flies unless 

 hard pressed but often darts out into the road in front 

 of a horse and easily keeps ahead until it gets 



AMI'KU'W FORESTRY 



A DOUBLE IMPOSITION 



A phoebe's nest, containing three white el 

 the cowbird. Young cowbirds, like young 1 

 ful young from the nest. 



gs of the phoebe and two spotted eggs of 

 European cuckoos, usually crowd the right- 



tired out, when it dis- 

 appears into the brush, 

 throwing its long tail 

 over its back to act as 

 a brake. 



The road-runner is 

 omnivorous, eating 

 cater pillars, beetles, 

 cactus fruits, horned 

 toads, lizards, snakes, 

 and young birds with 

 equal avidity. Many 

 wonderful stories are 

 told of its strange ways 

 and perhaps its ridicu- 

 lous appearance is suf- 

 ficient ground for 

 them. One has it 

 that when a road-run- 

 ner discovers a rattle 

 snake coiled up asleep, 

 it builds a corral of 

 thorny twigs about it 

 and then drops one up- 

 on the snake to awak- 

 en it. The startled 



snake thrashes about 

 in its effort to escape, 

 fills its body full of thorns, and soon falls prey to its 

 wily tormentor. 



Its nesting habits are quite normal for it usually builds 

 a rough structure of twigs in a thorny brush and lays 

 from four to nine white eggs. Sometimes it utilizes the 

 deserted nest of another bird. The young birds make fine 

 pets and seem to become attached to their captors. 



ARIAN CHRYSALIDS 



Young black-billed cuckoos showing their curiously mailed appearance 

 before the feather sheaths break. The transformation wrought by the 

 breaking open of these pencil-like quills is nearly as sudden and wonder- 

 ful as trie change from chrysalis to butterfly. 



A DAINTY DEBUTANTE 



The quills have now broken and the fluffy feathers have transformed the 

 ugly little black creature into a charming debutante. To the person un- 

 familiar with these birds it would seem incredible that such transforma- 

 tion could take place as is here suggested. 



