37 it suits him fine 



compromise. They cling to the mountains or to the cot- 

 tonwood-filled washes, especially in the hot weather, or 

 they go away somewhere else, like the not entirely recon- 

 ciled human inhabitants of this region. The road runner, 

 on the other hand, stays here all the time and he prefers 

 the areas where he is hottest and driest. The casual visitor 

 is most likely to see him crossing a road or racing with a 

 car. But one may see him also in the wildest wilds, either 

 on the desert flats or high up in the desert canyons where 

 he strides along over rocks and between shrubs. Indeed, 

 one may see him almost anywhere below the level where 

 desert gives way to pines or aspen. 



He will come into your patio if you are discreet. Taken 

 young from the nest, he will make a pet, and one writer 

 describes a tame individual who for years roosted on top 

 a wall clock in a living room, sleeping quietly through 

 evening parties unless a visitor chose to occupy the chair 

 just below his perch, in which case he would wake up, 

 descend upon the intruder, and drive him away. But the 

 road runner is not one who needs either the human in- 

 habitant or anything which human beings have introduced. 

 Not only his food but everything else he wants is amply 

 supplied in his chosen environment. He usually builds his 

 sketchy nest out of twigs from the most abundant tree, the 

 mesquite. He places it frequently in a cholla, the wicked- 

 est of the cacti upon whose murderous spines even snakes 

 are sometimes found fatally impaled. He feeds his young 

 as he feeds himseK, upon the reptiles which inhabit the 

 same areas which he does. And because they are juicy, 

 neither he nor his young are as dependent upon the hard- 

 to-find water as the seed-eating birds who must sometimes 

 make long trips to get it. 



