32 University of California Publications in Zoology [ Vou. 17 
the summer and fall months (see table I). The largest number of 
grasshoppers found in any one stomach was sixty-three. Many 
stomachs contained between twenty-five and thirty. More individuals 
had fed upon Orthoptera than upon any other group of insects (see 
table IIL). Orthoptera, it can be seen therefore, make up the basic 
element of the food of the roadrunner. The following species of 
Orthoptera were identified : 
GRASSHOPPERS AND CRICKETS (Orthoptera) 
Mantidae Acridiidae 
?Litaneutria pacifica Seud. Melanoplus differentialis Uhler 
Gryllidae Melanoplus devastator Seud. 
Gryllus pennsylvanicus Burm. Melanoplus sp. 
Gryllus integer Seud. Schistocerca sp. 
Locustidae ?Paropomala sp. 
Stenopelmatus irregularis Brun. 
Stenopelmatus sp. 
Hollister (1908, p. 458) reports that he found the stomachs of 
two roadrunners obtained near Needles, California, filled with ‘‘large 
? 
green grasshoppers.’’ A specimen taken by Stephens (MS) near 
San Diego, November 5, 1908, was also found ‘‘crammed with grass- 
hoppers.’’ In fact, so apparent has been the fact that the road- 
runner feeds extensively on grasshoppers that practically every writer 
has included these insects in statements regarding its food (see table 
IL). So far as relative quantity per bird is concerned, the roadrunner 
is probably to be numbered among the most efficient destroyers of 
these familiar pests. 
Butterflies and moths—The fact that butterflies and moths 
usually escape attack by birds has again been demonstrated by this 
investigation. Only a little over one-half of 1 per cent of the food 
examined was made up of adult butterflies and moths. Two noctuid 
moths were taken from one stomach, one from another, and a nymph- 
alid butterfly from a third. Lepidopterous larvae, on the other hand, 
formed 7 per cent of the food taken. One stomach contained as many 
as thirty-six caterpillars. Three birds had taken woolly-bear cater- 
pillars (Hustigmene acreae), another a white-lned sphinx caterpillar 
(Celario lineata), and a third a pupa of Hemileuca sp. Hairy cater- 
pillars of some species of Malacosoma were also found. 
The roadrunner shows relationship with the cuckoos in its habit 
of destroying hairy caterpillars. The stomach of a roadrunner taken 
at Otay, San Diego County, April 19, 1912, contaimed seven large 
