NOTES ON THE FOOD OF BIRDS 
49 
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the tig-like fruit of the giant cactus is ripe they also feed on 
this; in fact, many animals and birds seem to be very par¬ 
tial to it. It is astonishing how large an animal can be swal¬ 
lowed by one of these birds. I have found a species of gar¬ 
ter snake fully twenty inches long in the crop of one shot in 
Arizona.” — Captain C. Bendire. 
Captain Bendire also quotes Mr. Anthony as stating that 
the road runner has in several cases been known to make a 
meal of a nest of young house-tinches, and other small birds. 
As a destroyer of snakes, this bird must be considered 
somewhat harmful, since very few of our snakes are poison¬ 
ous, and many of them do great service in destroying gophers 
and similar destructive animals. 
California Cuckoo, or Western YeIIow=BilIed Cuckoo 
Captain Bendire once observed a nest of this bird “placed 
in a clump of willows, within a few feet of where I was 
camped, and my attention was first attracted to it by the un¬ 
easy manner in which the parents moved through the willows, 
constantly Hitting back and forth, and always with a large, 
black cricket, Anabrus , in their bills, on which they seemed 
to feed their young entirely.” Captain Bendire further 
noticed that this bird seemed invariably to build its own nest, 
and in no case to lay its eggs in the nests of other birds; as 
several of its relatives do. 
The eastern yellow-billed cuckoo is a great destroyer of 
caterpillars, including the cankerworm and tent caterpillar. 
No doubt the western bird, which is only subspecitically 
distinct from that of the east, has similar habits. 
The cuckoo, therefore, is a most beneficial bird. 
Belted Kingfisher 
“While different kinds of small fish undoubtedly constitute 
a large part of the kingfisher’s food where readily procurable, 
various species of Crustacea, as well as insects such as cole- 
optera, grasshoppers, and the large black crickets found in 
many of our Western states, are also eaten to a greater or 
less extent, according to circumstances; frogs and lizzards 
