The Road-runner 



More probable, in fact well 

 authenticated, are the stories 

 that Road-runners destroy 

 young birds, as well as mice and 

 other minor mammals. These 

 matters have been pretty well 

 thrashed out; 1 and while it is 

 established that some damage 

 is done to bird life, it appears 

 to be a quite incidental and in- 

 constant trait. Of more con- 

 sequence is the bird's enormous 

 consumption of grasshoppers 

 and crickets; and these form 

 more than one-third of its entire 

 diet. Beetles, cut-worms, and 

 caterpillars come next in order, 

 and of the latter, hairy cater- 

 pillars, "woolly bears," which no 

 other bird, save Cousin Cuckoo 

 (Coccyzus americanus occidental- 

 is), w\\\ touch. Beetles, crick- 

 ets, scorpions, lizards, and small 

 snakes are swallowed whole; 

 and the bird boasts a digestion 

 which our American Croesus, 

 he of the bread-and-milk diet, 

 would surely envy. The ten 

 per cent of vegetable matter 

 nest o^road^runnermtun 3 w j t h w hi c h the bird varies its 



regimen is found to consist al- 

 most entirely of "sour berries" (the fruit of Rhus integrijolia), 

 and these evidently serve as sauce for snake and centipede a la mode. 



Of the notes of this cuckoo, very little has been said in literature, and I 

 am not able myself to do more than report progress. Its usual daytime 

 call-note is most like the whine of a dog which has been several times 

 refused admittance to the house, Ookh ook(h) ook ooooo, trailing off into 

 despair. The despair of the bird is manifestly the mock heroic of the 

 pleading lover. This pathetic sound, ventriloquistic and unplaceable, is 

 one of the surest marks of springtime, at least along the brush-clad hill- 

 sides of southern California. A louder and much rarer "song" is uttered 



•See an exhaustive inquiry by Dr. H. C Bryant, University of Cal. Pub. inZool., Vol. 17, No. 5, pp. 21-58. 1016. 

 I IJ.2 



Taken in San Diego County 

 Photo by D. R. Dickey 



