THE VOICE OF THE DESERT 



34 



— namely a road runner — nearly two feet of relentless en- 

 ergy from the tip of his wicked bill to the tip of the long, 

 expressive tail which may trail the ground when he is 

 calm or depressed, or be raised almost as straight up as 

 the tail of a confident cat when he is happily angry, as 

 indeed he seems to be a good part of the time. From his 

 bold bad eye to his springy tread everything proclaims 

 him "rascal," and he has, in truth, a number of bad habits. 

 But there is also something indescribably comic about 

 him, and he illustrates the rule that comic rascals have a 

 way of engaging the affection of even the virtuous. Nearly 

 everybody is curiously cheered by the sight of a road run- 

 ner. In the old days the cowboys used to be amused by his 

 habit of racing ahead of their horses and they gave him 

 his name. The Mexicans of Sonora call him affectionately 

 "paisano" or "countryman." 



My specimen, far from having lost his wits, had them 

 very much about him. Suddenly he arrested his mad career, 

 stabbed with lightning rapidity at the ground and, crest 

 erect, lifted his head triumphantly — with a good sized 

 lizard in his beak. No one who has ever seen one of our 

 lizards run would like to be assigned the task of chasing 

 it from bush to bush and then nabbing it with a hand. But 

 catching lizards is all in a day's work for a road runner 

 and mine was merely collecting some for his breakfast. 

 His diet is varied from time to time by a snake, or even 

 an insect, if the insect happens to be large enough to be 

 worth the effort of a leap from the ground to take him 

 on the wing, as I have seen a zooming dragonfly taken. 

 Responsible observers say that when the lizard tries his 

 usual trick of surrendering his tail so that the rest of him 

 may make a safe getaway, the road runner, unlike some 



