

Photo by the author 
HE species of Road-runner that 
lB we know is distributed over cer- 
tain parts of California, Kansas, 
middle and western Texas, Colorado, 
and southward through the highlands 
of Mexico to Pueblo; it also occurs in 
some parts of Lower California. 
The length of an adult Road-runner 
is at least twenty-four inches, a good 
part of which, as will be noted from 
my cut, being the greatly elongated 
tail, in which the feathers are marked- 
ly graduated. The skin area around 
the eyes and at the back of the head is 
variously colored with dark blue and 
red. The plumage is olivaceous above, 
streaked with a tan brown and buffy 
white. The abdomen is whitish, breast 
the same, streaked with white. How- 
ever, this in no way fully describes the 
external character and plumage of this 
truly remarkable species; but to pre- 
sent all of it in detail would need sev- 
eral long paragraphs and occupy the 
space required to describe such parts 
of the bird’s habits as appeal to the 
sportsman and the general reader. 
Personally I never met with the nest 
of the Road-runner, while an authority 
at hand says that it is usually made “in 
cacti, mesquite, sage brush or thorny 
bushes—a large, coarse structure of 
sticks, lined with grass, feathers, strips 
of bark, snake skin, or rootlets, with 
slight depression. Eggs: 4 to 6 usually, 
but sometimes 2 or 12, chalky white or 
pale yellowish.” 
ILSON never saw a specimen of 
this bird in his’ time—conse- 
quently it is not mentioned in his work 
on the ornithology of this country. Au- 
dubon knew nothing of the bird either, - 
so he did not figure or describe it. But 
modern ornithologists have paid con- 
siderable attention to it, and its life 
history is now very generally known. 
Mr. Wm. L. Finley says that “while 
some people accuse the Road-runner 
of killing other birds, especially young 
Quail, our experience showed that he 
lived almost entirely on lizards. The 
young birds in the nest were fed on the 
lizards almost from the time they came 
out of the egg. The reptile was always 
killed and then thrust head down into 
the mouth of the youngster. The tail 
for a time would hang out of his mouth, 
but as the head end was digested, the 
young bird gulped a little now and then, 
until finally the end of the tail disap- 
peared.” Coues also referred to the 
young of the Road-runner somewhere 
in his work, and he stated that ‘“per- 
fectly fresh eggs and newly hatched 
young may be found together; and by 
the time the last young are breaking 
the shell, the others may be graded up 
to half the size of the adult.” 
ACK in the eighties I hunted‘ and 
collected all over northwestern and 
central New Mexico, but this bird was 
never seen by me in that area. On the 
other hand, I often saw it in Arizona, 
southern New Mexico and western 
Texas. It was extremely shy in 
the country surrounding the Zuni pu- 
ebla—I presume for the reason that the 
Indian boys constantly shot at it with 
their bows and arrows. Nowadays 
there probably is not a sportsman in 
the country where the Road-runner is 
still to be found, who is not familiar 
with the bird and its nest. In that part 
of the United States it has received a 
number of common names, such as the 
Snake Killer, the Ground Cuckoo, Chap- 
arral Cock, the Lizard Bird, the Corre- 
camio, the Chrea, the Paisano, the Cock 
of the Desert, and so on. 
Its peculiar plumage and its colora-., 
tion affords the Road-runner not a little 
protection in its native haunts. Very 
frequently it matches up with its sur- 
rounding’s in nature most completely; 
and when it perches or stands stock 
still, one may easily overlook it any- 
where in its habitat. 
While the power of flight is not es- 
pecially well developed in .our Road- 
runner, there are probably no birds of 
The 
Road Runner 
Notes on an Interesting 
Bird of the Southwest 
By 
Dreok.avie> oH UREL DISC aMes Zens nice 
its size that can in any way equal it as 
a runner on the ground. Many in-( 
stances are on record where the bird 
has, on the open road, outdistanced a, 
fast horse or pony—Zindeed, I know of 
no one who could catch up with a full 
grown bird, in good condition, on horse- 
back, chasing it over the open country 
or down a broad game path. 
aie Chaparral Cock simply keeps up 
a gait which no horse that ever 
lived could equal. In these days a few 
stories are heard where the bird has 
been chased, in perfectly open country, 
by the driver of an automobile. It 
does not take the machine long to run 
it down, when suddenly the bird will 
dodge into the nearest cover and make 
its escape. Doubtless, in time, the 
machine will help to do more than 
its share in exterminating this most 
interesting bird form of our avifauna. 
It is my impression that the Road- 
runner of Latin America has _ been 
described as a distinct species, or, per- 
haps, a subspecies; but just at this 
moment I do not recall where it was 
published, if published at all. How- 
ever, it is quite likely that in the ex- 
treme southern part of its range the 
species will present some few differ- 
ences in plumage and, maybe in size; 
but that is a matter I have not espe- 
cially looked into of late. At any rate, 
to a sportsman a Road-runner is a 
Road-runner—and nothing more. All 
the same, the true sportsman in this 
country in no way falls in the same 
class with those who simply have a 
name for a bird. 
A®* a rule, he demands to know all 
he can of its habits, its range, its 
nidification, and even a bit of the 
peculiarities of its structure. How 
abundant the bird is at this time I am 
not informed; in any event, should any 
one residing in that part of the coun- 
try where the Road-runner is still to 
(Continued on page 176) 
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