Poti mal We be) tN ee DEL en ale N 17 
of black, featherless young, and two others about ready to leave. This 
time range in hatching must ease the task of feeding the greedy youngsters. 
It is said that the first hatched sometimes brood the younger members of 
the family, even incubating the eggs yet to be hatched. 
Young Roadrunners are ugly, with dark-skinned bodies sparsely cov- 
ered with long, white hairs. Their flabby feet are a dull blue and their 
eyes gray-brown with steel-blue pupils. They are said to have a reptilian 
stare. At first they seem uncouth and greasy-looking. Like their parents, 
the chicks have insatiable appetites and keep up a constant begging and 
squeaking for food. 
The Roadrunner is said to typify the gluttonous tyranny of the stomach. 
Its appetite is ravenous and its manner ferocious. Preferably it swallows 
food whole. The bird eats grasshoppers, beetles, bugs, flies, ants, bees, 
wasps, caterpillars, spiders, scorpions, maggots, fruits, seeds, and, by 
choice, lizards, snakes, mice, rats, young thrashers and young quail. It 
also eats garbage, fresh meat, and carrion. It has even been seen leaping 
into the air to catch sparrows and other song birds on the wing. 
Food of any size, such as rats, lizards, etc., are slammed upon the 
ground or upon a stone until all the bones are broken. Then the Road- 
runner gulps down the victim. This treatment is applied whenever nec- 
essary. It is not uncommon to see a Roadrunner moving about for hours 
with several inches of lizard hanging from its bill, awaiting the digestion 
of the unseen portion. Whole lizards are even fed to the young, Yet Road- 
runners do more good than harm, since insects are important in their diet. 
Although its advances are cold, calculating and reptilian, this merci- 
less, bloodthirsty specimen is loved in Texas and New Mexico and even 
revered by the Mexican, who call it “el paisano” (little countryman). 
The Roadrunner is the state bird of New Mexico. Persecuted in the past, 
it is now protected by law and by strong public sentiment. 
The Roadrunner is confined largely to the arid brushlands of the 
Lower and Upper Sonoran Life Zones, but it does range into mountain 
valleys and southern slopes of mountains up to 7,000 feet. The species is 
permanent where found unless locally migratory. It ranges from north 
central California, Utah, and Colorado south to central Mexico. 
927 Brummel Street, Evanston, Illinois 
ft | fl ft 
I THOUGHT I SAW 
| thought | saw one junco 
In search of scattered crumb, 
But a junco is a flock 
Ad _ infinitum! 
Twenty birds, or fifteen 
Once the snow’s begun, 
Or five or six at least, — 
But never, never one. 
Emeline Ennis Kotula 
A A fi 
