Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1886-05-03
THE CALIFORNIA ROAD
RUNNER.

A very singular and yet very little
known bird is she roadrunner chapar-
raj cock, or, as it is known in Mexico
and the Spanish sections of the United
States, the paisano.
1t belongs to the cuckoo family. but
has none of the bad habits by which the
European cuckoo is best known. 1t isl
shy bird, but is not by any means an
unfamiliar object in the southwestern
portions of the United States and in
Mexico. Sometimes it wanders up into
middle California, but not often, SEEM
ing to prefer the more deserted, hotter,
and sander parts of southern California
and from there stretching its habitat as
far east as middle Texas
1t is not by any means brilliantly
colored bird, although some of its hues
are very beautiful. The prevailing color
of the roadrunner is olive green, which
is marked with brown and white The
top of the head is black blue, and is fur
nished with an erectile crest. The
eyes are surrounded by line of bare
skin.
1t is not large bird. being seldom
twenty-four inches long, with tail tax
ing more than half that length. The
tail, indeed, is the most striking feature
of the bird, being not only so very long,
but seemingly endowed with the gift of
perpetual motion, since it's never still,
but bobs up and down, and sidewse,
too, into every possible angle, and al
most incessantly.
But while its tail is most striking, its
legs are most remarkable, being not
only long and stout, but wonderfully
muscular. How muscular nobody would
be able to imagine who had not put
them to the test.
A traveller in Mexico tells of going
out with his ranchero host to hunt hares
with brace of very fine hounds. Going
over long stretch of sandy plain, re-
lieved only by pillars and clusters of
cactus, the Mexican called the attention
of his guest to an alert, comical-looking
bird some distance from them.
With the remark that the gentleman
should see some rare coursing, the Mexi-
can slipped the leashes of the straining
hounds, which sprang off as if used to
the sport, and darted after the bird. For
a moment it seemed to the stranger n
very poor use to put the dogs to, but
he was not long in changing his
mind.
Instead of taking wing, the bird tilted
its long tail straight up into the air in
saucily defiant way, and started off on a
run in direct line ahead. 1t seemed
an incredible thing that the slender
dogs, with their space devouring bounds,
should not at once overtake the little
ioird; but so it was. The legs of the
paisano moved with marvellous rapiditv,
and enabled it to keep the hounds at
their distance for a very long time, be-
ing finally overtaken only after one of
gamest races ever witnessed by the visit
ing sportsman.
The roadrunner, however, serves a
better purpose in life than being run
| down by hounds. Cassin mentions a
most singular circumstance among the
| peculiarities of the bird. 1t seems to
have a mortal hatred of rattlesnakes,
| and no sooner sees one of these reptiles
| than it sets about in what, to the snake
might well seem most diabolical way
of comprising its death. Finding the
| snake asleep, it at once seeks out the
spiniest of small cacti, the prickly pear,
and, with infinite pains and quietness,
carries the leaves. which it breaks off,
and puts them in a circle around the
slumbering snake. When it has made
sufficient wall about the object of all
this care, it rouses its victim with sud-
den peck of its sharp beak, and then
| quickly retires to let the snake work out
its own destruction, thing it eventual
iy does in a way that ought to crafty
the roadrunner if it have any sense of
humor. Any one watching it would say
it was expressing the liveliest emotion
with its constantly and grotesquely mov-
| ing tail.
The first impulse and act of the as
saulted snake is to coil for dart; its
next to move away. 1t quickly realizes
that it is hemmed in, in a circle, and
finall Y makes Il rash attempt to glide
over the obstruction. The myriad of
tiny needles prick it and drive it back.
The angry snake, with small wisdom,
attempts to retaliate by fastening its
fangs into the offending cactus. The
spines fill its mouth.
Angrier still. it again and again as
saults the prickly wall, until, quite be-
side itself with rage, it seems to lose its
wits completely, and, writhing and
twisting horribly, buries its envenomed
fangs into its own body, dying finally
from its self-infiicted wounds. After the
catastrophe, the roadrunner indulges in
a few gratitied tiirts of its long tail and
goes off, perchance to find its reward in
being run down by the hounds set on by
men.-John r. CoryeH, IN Scientific
american.