Abstract
ONE of the most remarkable and interesting birds of the arid portions of North America is the road runner (Geococcyx californianus), a ground cuckoo, which is often seen running in the road, sharing this habit with the killdeer plover (Oxyechus vociferus). The genus extends southward to Nicaragua, being represented in that region by another species (Geococcyx affinis). The accompanying illustration (Fig. 1) of a road runner attacking a rattlesnake, was furnished by Mr. G. A. Pearl of Garden City, Kansas. He got it from a travelling photographer whose name he does not know. Mrs. Merriam Bailey states that in the stomach of a single road runner, taken in New Mexico, were a large black cricket, a number of big grasshoppers, remains of a caterpillar and some beetles, a centipede six inches long and a garter snake a foot long.
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COCKERELL, T. The Road Runner of North America. Nature 138, 166 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138166a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138166a0
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