The Road-runner 
its plumage. Those immediately over the bird’s eye are especially sturdy, 
and there can be no doubt of their defensive purpose. As for the Road- 
runner’s legs, they are a marvel of speed and endurance, though a horse or 
a dog may tire them out. The footprints, two toes forward and two to the 
rear, are among the most characteristic sights of the desert; but we may 
not suppose that this double-toed arrangement makes for especial effi¬ 
ciency upon the ground. Indeed, it is altogether probable that this bird, 
whose ancestors were, and whose cousins are, strictly arboreal, is in so far 
handicapped. The hinder toes are weak; and, surely, three toes in front 
would give a better traction. 
But in all this we are failing to give a tenth part of the witchery and 
grotesque appeal which are bound up in this wraith of the desert. The 
Spanish vaqueros felt it and left a hundred tales, now chiefly legendary, of 
the bird’s cleverness and bent for mischief. The best and oldest tale, the 
classic of the range, I heard myself from a bandy-legged cowboy. It runs 
as follows: 
When a Road-runner discovers a rattlesnake, asleep, he quietly 
fetches joints of cholla cactus until he has a perfect circle, or fence, built 
around his snakeship. Then he leaps into the circle, and out again after 
a sharp peck, which wakes the snake and starts the fight. Another nip 
and the battle is on in earnest. The enraged rattler tries to get at the 
bird, and as often as he starts over the dead-line, recoils from the prick of 
Taken in the Mohave Desert Photo by Pierce 
YOUNG ROAD-RUNNERS 
the merciless thorns. Finally, in a fury of impotence, the snake bites 
himself, and yields his carcass to the exultant bird. My informant had 
seen this done repeatedly, and left the impression that rattlers, as a con¬ 
sequence, were very “skurce in these parts.” 
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