A STRANGE BIRD 25 



The body is slender, but the neck and head are large, and the 

 head has a conspicuous crest. The beak is large. Although 

 this bird has wings, it seldom uses them, and they must be 

 constantly growing smaller through disuse. 



This strange bird is a habitant of the Southwest, from 

 Texas to southern California and southward, and lives on the 

 ground, in the low, dry brush which is called chaparral (shap- 

 a-ral'). It feeds upon every living thing inhabiting that 

 region which it can catch and swallow — mice, lizards, small 

 snakes, centipedes and insects. It is one of the most nervous 

 birds imaginable — suspicious of everything that moves, and 

 ready to make off without stopping to reason why. 



It exhibits a decided preference for the smooth trails and 

 paths through its beloved chaparral, and when alarmed it 

 does not rise and fly, but makes off running, in the trail. It 

 runs with great swiftness and seeming ease, but Dr. D. T. 

 MacDougal has been informed that Mexican boys sometimes 

 run them down, on foot, and either kill them with sticks or 

 catch them alive. 



This bird is also great at leaping, as we have seen in keep- 

 ing it in captivity. Instead of flying to the top of a cedar- 

 tree perch six feet high, and down again, it always leaps, with 

 closed wings; but in leaping up it prefers to take a short run 

 to acquire momentum. If this bird goes on ten thousand 

 years in its present habits, by the end of that period its de- 

 scendants probably will be without the power of flight, but 

 provided with legs and feet so strong and full of spring that 

 they can leap twenty feet. 



