1916 | Bryant: Habits and Food of the Roadrunner 25 
at the end, and the outer tail feathers are tipped with white; the crest 
when raised is conspicuous, as is also the bare skin about the eye, 
which is red, blue, and whitish in color. The bill is over two inches long 
and hooked at the tip. The plumage is conspicuously striped with 
buffy brown and white and on the back and tail is glossed with green. 
At close range it will be noted that two toes point forward and two 
backward, a character which has caused this bird to be classified along 
with the cuckoos. The character of the feet make the footprints along 
a dusty road readily recognizable. 
There is no bird in the arid southwest that is more characteristic 
of the chaparral belt and desert. Most abundant in the San Diegan 
and desert regions, the roadrunner becomes less numerous toward the 
northern limit of its range in Shasta County. North of the Tehachapi 
it is most common in the foothills of the Sierras. It has been re- 
corded twice from the humid coast belt north of San Francisco Bay, 
in Sonoma and Marin counties (Maillard, 1900, p. 63; Belding, 1890, 
p. 56); and it approaches the coast in Alameda County (near Oak- 
land) and in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. It has been found 
rarely in the San Joaquin Valley. A few exceptions are noted: A 
roadrunner was noted at Tranquillity, Fresno County, on June 22, 
1915 (H. C. Bryant, MS). This individual sought refuge among tules, 
an out-of-the-ordinary habitat for this bird. One was seen by Tyler 
(1913, p. 82) at Lane’s Bridge, Fresno County, December 6, 1905, 
and a few others near Fresno at other times. In the mountains of 
southern California the roadrunner is occasionally seen above 5000 
feet ; but at or above this altitude it is always on some hot slope where 
Upper Sonoran vegetation is in evidence. Cooper (1870, p. 77) 
reported the species as occurring on Catalina Island in the early 60’s, 
but no additional records of its occurrence on the islands off the coast 
of California are known. A study of the distribution of the road- 
runner shows that the area inhabited follows very closely the limits 
of the Upper and Lower Sonoran life-zones (Grinnell, 1907, pp. 
51-53). 
It is not obvious how the range of the species is affected by its 
limited powers of flight, but the range of the individual is probably 
comparatively extensive, due to its highly developed powers of pedal 
locomotion. Where the individual range of most song-birds can be 
computed as covering but a few acres, that of the roadrunner in all 
probability needs to be computed in square miles. 
The breeding season usually covers the months of March, April, 
