GUARDIAN BIRDS 
423 
llATTLESNAKE ENTRAPPED BY CAEIEORNIA ROAD-R0NNER. 
not only has none of the bad habits laid 
to the charge of the cuckoo generally, but 
is even entitled to a good place among the 
guardian birds. 
To find this member of the family, it 
will be necessarj^ to leave Africa for the 
west coast of North America. This bird 
is called scientifically the Geococcyx cali- 
fornianas^ but is populaidy known under 
several other names, such as road-runner, 
chaparral cock, and paisano. As is usual¬ 
ly the case where modesty and great wortli 
are combined, the paisano is but little 
known. Man is its protege, and one of 
his most dangerous and deadly enemies— 
the rattlesnake—is the object doomed to 
destruction. 
The paisano is an odd bird in many re¬ 
spects. The body is not more than ten 
inches long, while the straight tail mea¬ 
sures fully thirteen inches. And a very 
uneasy member is this long tail, for it is 
almost constantly kept moving in a bob¬ 
bing, jerky sort of fashion. The general 
color of the upper part of the body is olive 
green, the beak is long and sharply curved 
at the end, on the head is a crest which 
may be erected at will, the legs are long 
and ])owerful, and the four toes of the feet 
are disposed in pairs backward and for¬ 
ward. 
It is able and willing to kill the rattle¬ 
snake in fair combat; but, according to 
Cassin, it has a much more poetical plan 
of causing the venomous creature's death 
when circumstances favor. Should it 
perchance find the snake asleep near a 
growth of that small cactus which Gener¬ 
al Fremont found so formidable a barrier 
in Southern California, it will quietly but 
vigorously apply itself to building a wall 
of the spiny vegetable about the uncon¬ 
scious snake. 
When the work is satisfactorily com¬ 
pleted. it will suddenly arouse the victim 
by a sharp stroke with its powerful beak. 
To coil for a spring is the rejitile’s first 
movement; to seek to retreat its next. It 
strives in vain to find a passage out. 
Teased by the bird, doubly angry at the 
barrier that opjioses* itself to his escape, 
the snake savagely strikes at the cactus. 
A mouthful of spines is no more wel¬ 
come even to a rattlesnake than to any 
other creature. He becomes furious. 
What shall he strike ? Where de])osit 
his overflowing venom ? At the cactus 
again. More injury to himself ! Rage — 
impotent rage. Again and again he mad¬ 
ly strikes. Blinded at last by fm\v, he 
turns uj)on him, self, and with choking hiss 
]dunges his fangs with increasing mad¬ 
ness into his own flesh. Repeatedly he 
hurls himself against the cactus—at last 
dies, his own toi’turing executioner. Is 
not that ])oetical justice ? 
For the unceasing and effective warfare 
which it wages against this foe to human¬ 
ity, the ])aisano certainly deserves only 
kindness from man. And from man 
generally he receives it; but from the spe¬ 
cies sportsman he receives it not. And is 
not the reason for this suHicient ? Pai¬ 
sano, though gifted with good wings, is 
