106 TEXAS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINISCENCES. 



Our chaparral cock, Fasan, or 

 "Road runner," or "Paisano" in 

 Mexican, undoubtedly belongs to 

 the genus "Gallinae" or chicken, 

 which they nearly resemble in size 

 and shape of the clawed feet, 

 but they are entirely more slender 

 built and more elegant in appear- 

 ance with their beautiful and 

 glittering bluish-green Body feath- 

 ers, intermingled with black and 



of the Helotes settlement some 

 years ago during an outing, we 

 came across a chaparral cock with 

 fi young prairie rat in its mouth, 

 which it had captui'ed in a nearby 

 cactus thicket, and which it proud- 

 ly held in its beak, and soon disap- 

 peared in the dense agarita chaparral 

 close to a cedar forest. 



The chaparral cock is not a 

 game bird — and still some persons 



An Old Chaparral Cock With Lizard in Its Beak (From the Helotes Hills, by the Writer) 



white feather stripes over the 

 entire body. Its large head with 

 the intelligent looking dark brown 

 eyes is supplied with a powerful 

 and long bill with which it obtains 

 and kills its prey — mostly insects 

 o'f all kinds, especially grass- 

 hoppers, and also lizzards and 

 spiders, young snakes, prairie mice 

 and young rats, etc. 

 In the hilly regions and vales 



shoot them — often for mere amuse- 

 ment. 



A rdiable old Mexican ranchero 

 once told me that he considered 

 the "Paisano" a most useful bird 

 around his hacienda, and that he 

 witnessed with his own eyes several 

 instances where this chaparral cock 

 killed the deadly rattlesnake in 

 about these words: "After some 

 preliminary attacks, during which 



