10 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT 



of everything that runs or crawls, he swallows 

 horned toads, grasshoppers, mice, centipedes, 

 millipedes, cutworms, spiders, bumblebees, and 

 occasionally even snakes, wood rats, and new- 

 born rabbits. Cactus fruits and the berries of 

 the sumac are among his vegetable foods. This 

 bird has a penchant for meat, and his flesh- 

 eating habits sometimes get the better of him 

 for instance, when he finds the meat set as bait 

 in traps. Too often the trapper, making his 

 " rounds " in the morning, finds the feathers of 

 some ill-fated road-runner which was caught by 

 the steel jaws and in turn eaten up by some 

 coyote or fox that found him fluttering help- 

 lessly in the trap. 



The road-runner has extraordinary ability 

 as a stalker of rapid-flying insects. This is at- 

 tested by the fact that in the stomach of a 

 road-runner taken near San Diego, California, 

 thirty-six cicadas were found insects which 

 the entomologist always finds very difficult to 

 take on the wing. 1 Again and again I have 

 seen him leap in air and snap up some great 



1 University of California Publications in Zoology, vol. 17, 

 No. 5. 



