The Road-runner 
the wall, then sprang into the air for a long sail which ended in the sage. 
In no respect does Geococcyx betray its cuckoo affinities more clearly 
than in the irregularity of its egg deposition. Eggs of a dull white or 
dingy yellowish cast may be laid as frequently as every other day, but 
usually depositions are three or four days apart; and since incubation 
begins whenever the bird happens to feel like it, it is a commonplace to 
find the entire gamut from fresh eggs to pin-feathered young exhibited in 
a single nest. Four is a common number for a set, but I have seen seven, 
and nine are of record. 
A glimpse of the home life of Geococcyx is permissible, and may be best 
accomplished by the following record of a single nest. On the i ith day of 
June, 1915, my son William found a nest placed twelve feet up and near the 
end of a branch in a thickly shaded portion of a live-oak tree in W. E. 
Johnson’s hillside pasture. When the parent bird flushed, she disclosed 
three young, of which the youngest had just hatched, and one egg. I paid 
the place a clandestine visit after sundown, and the old bird sat tight while 
I broke twigs right beside her, and in other ways prepared the scene for 
photography on the morrow. Arrived, then, on the morning of the 12th I 
was pleased to find the mistress at home. She did not, however, sit to a 
NEST AND EGGS OF THE ROAD-RUNNER 
1144. 
