14 LIFE HISTOEIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



of Inyo County, California, about latitude 36° N. In southwestern Kansas it is 

 undoubtedly quite rare and can only be considered as a straggler. 1 



Its general habits are far more terrestrial than arboreal, spending most of 

 its time on the ground in search of food, and frequenting the drier desert tracts 

 adjacent to river valleys, and the lower foothills, covered by cactus, yuccas, and 

 thorny undergrowth. It rarely ventures into the higher mountain ranges among 

 the conifers, but breeds occasionally among the oaks bordering the pine belt. It 

 is most abundant at altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 3,500 feet, and is seldom seen 

 within the United States above 5,000 feet; but in the San Pedro Martir range, in 

 Lower California, Mr. A. W. Anthony has met with the Road-runner at an altitude 

 of 7,000 feet above sea level, and at Grlorietta, New Mexico, it has recently been 

 reported as breeding at a height of 8,000 feet. 



The Chaparral Cock is rather unsocial in its habits, and it is rare to see more 

 than a couple together excepting after the breeding season, when the young still 

 follow one of the parents. Its food consists almost entirely of animal matter, 

 such as grasshoppers, beetles, lizards, small snakes, land snails, the smaller rodents, 

 and not unfrequently of young birds. On the whole, these birds do far more 

 good than harm. When the fig-like fruit of the giant cactus is ripe they also 

 feed on this ; in fact, many mammals and buds seem to be very partial to it. It 

 is astonishing how large an animal can be swallowed by one of these buds. I 

 have found a species of garter snake fully 20 inches long in the crop of one 

 shot in Arizona. 



Mr. Anthony writes me on this subject as follows: "A half-grown bird 

 which I shot at San Quenthi, Lower California, presented an unusually bunchy 

 appearance about the throat and neck, a fullness which was accounted for upon 

 dissection by the discovery of an immense lizard which had been swallowed 

 entire but a few moments before the bird was shot. I know of several instances 

 of Road-runners making a meal of a nest of young House-finches, Carpodacus 

 mexiccmus frontalis, and other small birds." 



I am aware that there is a pretty general belief in localities where the Road- 

 runner is common, and where the rattlesnake is usually more so, that these birds 

 are more than a match for even the largest of these reptiles, and attack and kill 

 them wherever found, an assertion I very much question. It is said when one of 

 these birds, while rambling about, meets a rattlesnake, coiled up and asleep after 

 a good meal, it quietly hedges the reptile in with a ring or fence of the joints of 

 the Gholla cactus, and after having done so, drops a similar joint from above on the 

 sleeping reptile, which, being enraged thereby, thrashes around and soon becomes 

 covered with the sharp spines, and then falls an easy victim to the bird, after 

 becoming exhausted in vain attempts to free itself. The bird is said to first pick 

 its eyes out and so render it entirely helpless. This is a very plausible story, 

 and while I am only too well aware of the sharpness of the spines of the Cholla 



' In a letter received from Mr. A. W. Anthony, -written on August 5, 1888, and overlooked by me when 

 this article was written, he informs me that a Road-runner, accompanied by three young, was seen by a 

 traveling companion of his who knew these birds well, on the line of railroad between Albany and Ashland, 

 Oregon, about 50 miles south of Albany, some time in August, 1887. This extends its range considerably 

 northward. 



