]71 'ove in the desert 



does not expect as much of him as one does of an oriole 

 for two good reasons. In the first place, his normal man- 

 ner is aggressive, ribald and devil-may-care. In the second 

 place, he is a cuckoo, and the shirking of domestic respon- 

 sibilities by some of the tribe has been notorious for so 

 long that by some confused logic human husbands who 

 are the victims of unfaithfulness not only wear the horns 

 of the deer but are also said to be cuckolded. The fact re- 

 mains, nevertheless, that though I have watched the de- 

 veloping domestic life of one road runner couple for 

 weeks, I have observed nothing at which the most critical 

 could cavil. 



The nest — a rather coarse affair of largish sticks — was 

 built in the crotch of a thorny cholla cactus some ten feet 

 above the ground, which is rather higher than usual. When 

 first found there were already in it two eggs, and both of 

 the parent birds were already brooding them, turn and 

 turn about. All this I had been led to expect because the 

 road runner, unlike most birds, does not wait until all the 

 eggs have been laid before beginning- to incubate. Instead 

 she normally lays them one by one a day or two apart and 

 begins to set as soon as the first has arrived. In other 

 words the wife follows the advice of the Planned Par- 

 enthood Association and "spaces" her babies — perhaps be- 

 cause lizards and snakes are harder to come by than in- 

 sects, and it would be too much to try to feed a whole nest 

 full of nearly grown infants at the same time. Moreover, 

 in the case of my couple "self-restraint" or some other 

 method of birth control had been rigorously practiced and 

 two young ones were all there were. 



Sixteen days after I first saw the eggs, both had hatched. 

 Presently both parents were bringing in lizards according 



