184 LAND BIRDS 



doubt if there is good scientific authority for such a 

 statement, and, like the rattlesnake story, it should be 

 taken with a grain of allowance. 



Although so shy, these birds are very inquisitive, 

 often coming close to human habitations for apparently 

 no other reason than to satisfy their curiosity. A 

 ranchman told me about a Road-runner that carried off 

 a bright red ribbon half a yard long, which he had 

 picked up in the road, running as fast as his swift legs 

 could carry him with the ribbon fluttering behind him 

 like a flag. Nor do I doubt this, after having seen a 

 very amusing comedy played by one of these birds. The 

 sole actor was a handsome cock, who was jumping back- 

 ward and forward over a clump of sagebrush at least 

 eight times in succession, each time leaping higher than 

 before. At first I thought it was some sort of love- 

 dance ; but no female was in sight. Then I fancied he 

 might be kUling some enemy, he seemed so excited. 

 But the passage of a horseman startled him, and away 

 he ran on a merry race, with nothing in his beak. There 

 was no trace of anything on the ground by the time I 

 could cross the thirty yards' distance to investigate. 



The usual note of the Road-runner is a modification of 

 the "kow-kow-kow" of the yellow-billed cuckoo into a 

 softer " coo-coo-coo," which some one has likened to the 

 " coo " of a mourning dove ; but this is varied by the 

 chuckling notes I have heard a crow utter when talking 

 to himself, and it occasionally degenerates into a cackle. 



