Chapter C: J. Maynard (1896) says (2)

Eggs are usually laid in April and May. W. E. D. Scott (1886) tells us, however, of several nests found on the San Pedro slope of the Catalina Mountains in Arizona, the earliest of which, discovered March 17, 1885, at an elevation of 3,000 feet, contained two fresh eggs. That two broods of young are sometimes, if not frequently, reared in one season has been reported by numerous authors, though I believe it has not been proved beyond doubt that fresh eggs found in July are laid by females that have already succeeded in bringing out one brood.

_Young._--Newly hatched young are odd, “featherless, greasy, black” creatures with a reptilian appearance. I had a good deal to do with young roadrunners in the vicinity of Fort Worth, Tex., as a boy, so I quote my own description here (1922):

The nestling bird, be it ever so young, has an unmistakable
cuckoo-like expression in its face, though its eyes, upon
which a good portion of the facial expression depends,
are quite different from those of the adult, being of a
deep dull brown with a bluish pupil. * * * The eyelashes
are small, in fact scarcely apparent. Its whole external
appearance is very sombre, and rather dirty-looking, as
though the creature had been bathed in some unrefined oil,
which had not been properly administered. The white hairs,
each of which marks a coming feather, all lie in rows and
look as if they had been rudely combed into place. The
rather large, pale blue-gray feet are strong in the toes,
but very weak at the heel, so that the birds cling to the
fingers or the twigs of their nest with some power, but are
quite unable to rise. Whenever there were very many young
birds in the nest they presented a peculiarly scrambled
appearance, due, I believe, to the constant disturbance at
feeding time more than to restlessness, for they usually
lie quite still. By May 1 [the birds were taken from the
nest on April 29] feathers were appearing rapidly on my
young birds, first on the top of the head, back, and
wings, and then on the belly, tail, and throat. Once the
blood-quills had started to burst, development was very
rapid. On May 4 the birds were quite well feathered, the
tails being one and one-half inches long, and they were
quite able to walk unsteadily. It is at this period, or a
little before, that the young leave the nest, though there
must be innumerable dangers for the rather weak-legged
creatures. Several times I have come across young birds
able to run well, but still in trees, which leads me to
believe that the young may, like young Green Herons, spend
a portion of their early active life climbing about from
branch to branch.

During the spring and summer of 1914 I reared these two young roadrunners, feeding them uncounted hundreds of grasshoppers, cave crickets, tarantulas, centipedes, scorpions, lizards, snakes, mice, cotton rats, and small birds. They were the most entertaining pets I ever had. Eventually they learned to capture their own food. Concerning this period of their life I have published the following paragraphs (1936):

After three weeks they became sturdy enough to catch
part of their own food. With patient coaxing they were
taught to pick up grasshoppers tossed to them, and finally
to run after and capture crippled insects. Content at
first, perforce, with sluggish, wingless nymphs which
were abundant, they stole about through the weeds, wings
pressed neatly against their slender bodies, snapping up
the insects as fast as they could find them. Grasshoppers,
often still alive and kicking, they swallowed with a toss
of the head and a hollow gulp. Large green or gray cave
crickets, which live in piles of boards, or in damp,
shadowy places, were especially prized. When a yellow- or
coral-winged grasshopper rose noisily from the path, the
birds crouched in momentary fear, but soon began to mark
the return to earth of the clackety aeronaut and to steal
up behind clumps of grass, intent upon a killing.

Finally they learned to capture the biggest, noisiest, and
wariest grasshoppers on the prairies. They would watch a
coral-wing in his courtship flight and, running stealthily,
wait until the performer dropped to the ground. With a
bound over low weeds, a dart across the open, and a final
rush with outspread wings and tail, they would frighten
their prey into the air, leap nimbly after him, nab him
unerringly with their bills, and descend gracefully on
outspread wings to beat him to insensibility with a whack
or two on a stone.

Once they had learned to capture grasshoppers, their food
problem was largely solved and, since they showed no
inclination to run away, they were at liberty most of the
time. They ran about the yard, playing with each other, or
catching insects. In the heat of mid-day they sought the
shelter of broad, cool leaves, and sprawled in the sand.
Daily, often many times daily, I took them for a walk
across the prairie. Following me closely or running at
my side, they watched the big world with eyes far keener
than my own. Grasshoppers which I frightened from the
grass they captured in side expeditions. If I paused near
a flat stone, they urged me on with grunts, bit gently
at my hands, and raced back and forth in an ecstasy of
anticipation.

I entertained misgivings concerning these flat stones.
What savage creatures might not they conceal? Could young
Road-Runners manage swift-tailed scorpions, sharp-toothed
mice, or poisonous spiders? Under the first stone there
were scorpions. The Road-Runners hesitated an instant,
as if permitting an untried instinct to take possession
of their brains, then rushed forward, thrust out their
heads, and attacked the scorpions precisely at their tails.
Perhaps these venomous tails received more than the usual
number of benumbing blows, but the scorpions were swallowed
with gusto.

I had not supposed that a Road-Runner would capture and
devour a tarantula. One day, however, we paused at the
tunnel of one of these big, furred spiders. Somewhat in the
spirit of experimentation, and following the method known
to all Texas boys, I teased the black Arachnid from her
lair by twirling a wisp of grass in her face. She popped
out viciously and jumped a good ten inches to one side.
With a dash one bird was upon the monster before she had
opportunity to leap a second time. A toss of the bird’s
head and one of the eight legs was gone. Free again, the
spider leaped upon her captor. The other bird now entered
the combat, snatched up the spider, and flicked off another
leg. One by one the legs went down, and finally the two
birds pulled apart and gulped the sable torso.

_Plumages._--The newly hatched roadrunner’s only plumage is coarse, long, white or whitish hairs. These do not by any means cover the dark-skinned body, but they apparently give the bird all the protection it needs. At this stage the light-colored egg tooth is noticeable, the feet are dark colored like the rest of the body, the mouth lining has a peculiarly blotched appearance, and the irides are dull brown.

As blood quills replace the long white hairs, the egg tooth disappears, the legs and feet turn blue-gray, the skin about and back of the eye lightens, and the blotching of the mouth lining becomes less conspicuous. The sprouting feathers now bear at their tips the white hairs of babyhood. Some of these hairs cling to the plumage long after the bird leaves the nest.

When young roadrunners begin to capture their own food they wear a plumage that is much like that of the adult. J. A. Allen (Scott, 1886) describes this plumage thus: “The chief difference in color consists in the broad shaft stripes of the feathers of the neck and breast being less sharply defined in the young than in the adult, and in the brown edgings bordering the shaft stripes being paler.”

At this stage the bare skin about the eye becomes pale blue, and the naked patch back of the eye light orange. Too, the eye itself changes, a light-colored ring, which contrasts sharply with the brown or gray-brown of the rest of the iris, forming about the pupil. As the bird becomes older the bare skin of the face brightens. Fully adult males, at the height of the nesting season, are fairly resplendent with their high, steel-blue crest, brilliant eye, and bright orange patch back of the eye.

The plumage worn by the young bird after it loses its natal hairs is apparently the first winter plumage. Judging from such specimens as I have seen, the postnuptial molt is the only complete molt of the adult bird. Whether there is a partial prenuptial molt in young or adult birds I cannot say. The roadrunner’s life is so strenuous that he doubtless loses feathers frequently. Spring birds with half-grown tail feathers may therefore not be performing a molt in the usual sense of the word.

_Food._--Lizards (including the armored horned “toad”), small snakes, scorpions, tarantulas and other spiders, centipedes and millipedes, mice, cotton rats, ground-inhabiting small birds and their eggs and young, young quail, insects of all sorts, various fruits and seeds, including pricklypears: all these are eaten by the roadrunner; and this considerable list but hints at the rapacity and digestive powers of the gaunt bird. One of the most thorough-going reports on the roadrunner’s food habits is that by Dr. Harold C. Bryant (1916). Informing us that animal food makes up slightly over 90 percent of the total food of the species in California, Dr. Bryant says:

Almost any animal, from the smaller rodents down to tiny
insects, appears to be relished by this bird. Although
the stomachs examined showed no large percentage of
vertebrates, other published records show that reptiles
sometimes form a large part, if not the entire diet. Even
these larger elements of food are usually swallowed whole
at one gulp. That the digestive apparatus is powerful is
evidenced by the fact that bone, hair, and feathers pass
through the digestive tract, and are not thrown back out
through the mouth in the form of pellets, as is the case
with some hawks and most owls.

A diagram in Dr. Bryant’s paper makes it plain that grasshoppers and crickets form a considerable part (36.82 percent) of the roadrunner’s food in California. Beetles form 18.2 percent; and seeds and fruits, cutworms and caterpillars, bugs, ants, bees, wasps, scorpions, lizards, mammals, fly larvae, birds, and “miscellaneous” items go to make up the rest.

Game officials are usually opposed to the roadrunner, for the bird is reputed to be an enemy of young quail. Regarding the bird’s reputation as a quail destroyer, W. L. McAtee (1931) tells us that “the Road-runner is persecuted almost throughout its range * * * as an alleged destroyer of Quail eggs, and state bounties are even paid for its destruction. Yet the Road-runner never has been known to be a special enemy of Quail,” and it doubtless “eats more scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas, those poisonous nuisances of the Southwest, than it does Quail eggs.”

Aldo Leopold (1922) writes of shooting a roadrunner “with a light-colored object in his bill.” Examining the spot where the bird had fallen he “found a dead [quail] chick, still limber and warm but unmutilated * * * still in the downy stage, with ⅛-inch pin feathers on the wing--smaller than a domestic chick when hatched.”

S. S. Visher (1910) writing of birds found by him in Pima County, Ariz., tells us that roadrunners “have been seen leaving the nest of Gambel’s Quails carrying an egg in their beak.”

That the roadrunner will occasionally capture birds as large as a mockingbird is apparent from several published accounts including that by Robert S. Woods (1927a) who tells us of “an immature but full-grown mockingbird” captured though not actually killed by a roadrunner near Azusa, Calif.; and that by Dr. W. K. Fisher (1904) who reports that a roadrunner was seen to “remove from a nest a young mockingbird and devour it” in Mission Valley, near San Diego, Calif.

In a letter to A. C. Bent, Mr. Woods (who is quoted above) speaks of a short article written by the late Rev. St. John O’Sullivan, of San Juan Capistrano Mission, “describing a roadrunner’s method of killing a swift by lying in wait in a creek-bed near Palm Springs and suddenly springing into the air to knock down one of the birds which passed within its reach.” This capturing swifts in air seems perfectly plausible to me, for I recall seeing my captive roadrunners capturing English sparrows in much the same manner. Walking about with a noncommittal air that was comically suggestive of the chickens that fed nearby, they gradually grew nearer to a sparrow, then with a dash to one side and a tremendous leap snatched the fleeing victim from the air.

A. W. Anthony (1896) tells us of suddenly coming upon a roadrunner that had just finished despatching a wood rat (_Neotoma_). “The bird reluctantly withdrew as I came upon the scene,” he writes, “leaving the rat, which I found to be quite dead.”

My own captive birds caught and killed a cotton rat (_Sigmodon_) that lived in a stone wall near our house in Fort Worth, Tex. Two or three times a day this rat scurried across a gap in this wall, and the birds came to look upon him as a possible meal. At first his speed and considerable size kept the enemy at a safe distance, but their interest sharpened daily, and eventually they formed the habit of loitering near the runway. One day I heard a squeal of terror and ran up in time to see the bewildered animal running this way and that, trying to escape two lightning-quick demons who never really held him, but pinched him, tossed him, dealt him blows, buffeted him, made him weary with fighting for life. Over his limp form the roadrunners had an argument. He was heavy. No sooner would one bird start to swallow than the other would be tugging at the hind foot or tail, and down he would drop. I finally cut the rat in two.

Carroll Dewilton Scott has contributed a note concerning roadrunners that catch half-grown “gophers” in his garden at Pacific Beach, Calif. Describing one of the birds he says: “Finally, after ridiculous gulpings and twistings of his neck he got the gopher down, balanced his tail, and ambled away from another conquest.”

Mrs. Bailey (1928) tells us of two roadrunners observed at Carlsbad, N. Mex., that “snapped their bills and chased each other up into a cottonwood on the bank where there were caterpillar nests. To determine what they had been eating, one was shot and its gizzard was found to contain not only caterpillar skins but a number of large grasshoppers, a large black cricket, beetles, a centipede six inches long, and part of a garter snake a foot long. The rest of the snake was down in the crop and the barely swallowed end up near the bill.”

Regarding the economic status of the roadrunner in California, Dr. Bryant (1916) says: “A preponderance of evidence favors the bird. The destruction of such unquestioned pests as grasshoppers, cutworms, caterpillars, and wireworms and of such rodents as mice is to be desired even if the amount of destruction be relatively small. The taking of this sort of food on wild land is evidence that this bird when feeding in cultivated fields is likely to be distinctly beneficial.”

_Behavior._--Anyone who has observed the roadrunner closely knows what an entertaining creature it is. Its voracity keeps it on the alert for food. To capture a grasshopper one moment, a race-runner lizard the next, and a tarantula the next requires strength, speed, and prowess. If nymph grasshoppers are numerous, the bird has no trouble in obtaining a meal. But flying grasshoppers are difficult to overtake; lizards escape because of the brittleness of their tails; and tarantulas have burrows into which they can pop when danger threatens.

Not often does one see a wild roadrunner capturing its food. I recall watching one a year or two ago, not far from Packsaddle Lake, a small, artificial body of water in western Oklahoma. I had climbed a sandy mound. Peering through the sagebrush, I saw a roadrunner under a bush not far away, busy feeding. He ran out into the sunlight now and then, but his attention was directed principally to grasshoppers that must have been feeding on the leaves. These he snatched, with nimble leaps upward, in the tip of his bill. To reach the insects that were in the midst of the bush, he scrambled noisily through the twigs, caught a few, then sprang back to the ground to catch those that had fallen or jumped out.

W. E. Allen (1932) gives us a breezy description of the capture of a small bird by a roadrunner that had been running just ahead of him. He says:

Before we had gone as much as a hundred yards, however,
his [the roadrunner’s] pacing routine was broken by a
sudden dash from a slouchy pose and the development of a
brown streak across the road which ended in his emergence
on a bank beyond a parked automobile. Somewhere beneath
the car he had struck a full-fledged young bird (probably
a “California Linnet”) at full speed * * *. The victim
appeared to have been caught by the neck, which probably
accounts for the fact that it made no outcry. It must have
been badly stunned also by the stroke of the heavy beak
because it struggled only feebly.

After becoming satisfied that I was not disposed to
interfere, the captor moved on to a point about 10 feet
farther away. Here he hammered the hard ground two or three
times with the body of his victim, evidently destroying all
signs of life. Then he dropped it, grasped a wing near its
base, and with a skilful jerk stripped nearly every feather
from it * * *. After stripping the wing he spent three or
four minutes in picking at the birdling’s body with some
hammering and jerking mixed in. Apparently this was for the
purpose of getting rid of feathers. At any rate, they were
thrown around profusely, and the movements were different
from those a little later which seemed to be devoted to
mauling and crushing the body into a shapeless mass.

Finally this mass (which seemed to be about as large as the
roadrunner’s head) was picked up with a kind of tossing
motion which landed it in the back of his mouth. The
first effort at swallowing, consisting of tossings of the
head and spasmodic movements of the jaws and throat, only
resulted in getting the mass started into the throat. After
a short rest another series of these movements shifted it
along to a visible extent but it was not till the fourth
series was finished that the food appeared to have been
swallowed completely. After this was accomplished the
bird turned toward me and slouched into a curious pose of
indifference mixed with satisfaction.

A roadrunner’s program is full enough with only himself to feed. But when he has a nestful of hungry young he must indeed wear himself ragged catching insects and lizards and snakes. These he brings from near and far, going and coming in such a way as to keep himself hidden. With what satisfaction must he start a foot-long garter snake on its way down the gullet of one of his offspring, knowing that one voice at least will be stilled so long as any of that snake remains to be swallowed!

Many an interesting account has been written of the roadrunner’s foraging activities. A. Brazier Howell (1916) tells us of difficulties he had in retrieving small bird specimens before roadrunners stole them. He writes:

While I was out collecting, these abundant birds would
often be seen skulking about with eyes open for any
opportunity, and it was always necessary, in such cases,
to make a dash for a specimen after it was shot. On two
occasions a roadrunner darted in and grabbed a bird when
I had almost reached it, once hopping two feet in air to
nip a sparrow that had lodged in the branches of a bush.
At another time I was watching a small flock of sparrows
as they busily fed in the brush, when I noted a roadrunner
stealing up like a cat, taking advantage of every bit of
cover. When at the proper distance, it rushed out and
sprang into the air at the retreating sparrows.

J. Eugene Law (1923) tells us of a roadrunner that tried to pull a dead golden-crowned sparrow through the ¾-inch-mesh wire of a sparrow trap. This writer states that he did not actually see the roadrunner kill the sparrow, though an autopsy showed “the entire brain area” to be “dark with blood infusion.”

My pet roadrunners did not capture horned “frogs” unless other food was difficult to obtain. They killed and ate these well-armored reptiles, however. A horned lizard, confronted by its ancient foe, would flatten out, rise high on its legs, and sway back and forth as if about to leap or inflict a dangerous bite. But a roadrunner is not to be bluffed. Grasping his tough victim by the head or back he beat it against a convenient stone. Thirty or forty blows were needed to render it sufficiently quiescent for ingestion. If swallowed while yet alive it had to be coughed up for further battering.

When not engaged in pursuing food a roadrunner may rest, seeking either a cool spot on the ground or the shadowy heart of a tree. In the morning it sometimes takes a sunbath. Henry W. Henshaw (1875) tells us that “it loves to meet the first rays of the rising sun, ascending for this purpose to the top of the mesquite trees, and, standing erect on the topmost branch, loosens its feathers, and appears to catch all the grateful warmth possible, remaining in this attitude for many minutes.” My captive roadrunners took sunbaths every day, spreading their wings and exposing the featherless tracts of their backs.

The roadrunner has a streak of domesticity in his nature. Mrs. Bailey (1922) has given us a delightful account of a remarkably tame though uncaged bird that lived about camp. Concerning this bird (which was known as “Koo”), Mrs. Bailey says:

It was not his potential usefulness as a camp watchman
or killer of “varmints” but his ready friendliness and
attractive ways which attached us to our rare camp visitor.
If we were busy when he came he would call _koo, koo_, and
then wait for us to discover him. Sometimes we would look
hard before finding him and finally make him out standing
on the mesquite slope above us, his feathers puffed out
spreading the streaks on his chest till they and his
light underparts toned in perfectly with a background
of straw-colored ground and dry weed-stalks--completely
camouflaging him. It was astonishing to see how such a
large, marked bird could disappear in its background. And
what a contrast that round, bird-like form made to the
grotesque running figure we were familiar with--long neck,
slender body, and long tail, one straight line.

J. K. Jensen (1923) tells us of a pair of roadrunners that fed “with the chickens on a ranch near Santa Fe,” that “came regularly for a ‘hand out’ and often went to roost in the poultry house.” This author does not specify what the “hand out” was. Needless to say, it hardly could have been corn or wheat.

Frightened from the nest a roadrunner may scuttle off to remain hidden for some time. Again, it may stay close by, attempting to lure the intruder away. M. French Gilman (1915) describes a mother bird that was “very anxious about the eggs,” that “ran around close to me in a mammalian sort of way, flat on the ground, tail dragging, and head stretched out in front only about three inches from the soil. She did not look like a bird at all, and though making no fluttering demonstration, her antics were calculated to excite curiosity and distract attention from the nest.”

J. R. Pemberton (1916) describing a “variation of the broken-wing stunt” by a roadrunner, writes:

As I was climbing near the nest the bird hopped to the
ground. Immediately it began to squirm, scramble, and drag
itself away across an open space and in full view. The bird
was simulating a broken leg instead of the conventional
broken wing! The bird held its wings closed throughout the
demonstration though frequently falling over on its side
in its enthusiasm. The whole performance was kept entirely
in my view, the bird gradually working away from the tree
until it was some 35 feet distant when it immediately ran
back to the base of the tree and repeated the whole show.
I had been so interested up to now that I had failed to
examine the nest which when looked into contained five
young probably a week old. When I got to the ground the
bird continued its stunt rather more frantically than
before and in order to encourage the bird I followed, and
was pleased to see it remain highly consistent until I was
decoyed to a point well outside the grove. Here the bird
suddenly ran away at full speed and in a direction still
away from the nest.

_Voice._--We have already described the spring song of the roadrunner. Howard Lacey (1911) tells us that the bird “makes a loud chuckling crowing noise * * * and also a cooing noise that might easily be mistaken for the voice of some kind of dove; it also makes a sort of purring sound in its throat, _perrp, perrp, perrp_.”

As for this “purring sound,” I am not at all sure that it is _vocal_. One of the roadrunner’s most characteristic alarm sounds is not a _cry_ at all; it is an incisive, clackety noise made by rolling the mandibles together rapidly and sharply. Even young birds just out of the nest can produce this sound, though the softness of the bill muffles the sharpness somewhat.

Young birds in the nest make a buzzing sound when begging for food. Well do I remember a nestful of these “infant dragons” that I found in April 1914. Concerning these I have written (1936): “Accidentally I touched an upturned beak and four great mouths, wobbling uncertainly on scrawny necks, rose in unison. I jerked back my hand--the pink-blotched lining of those mouths had an almost poisonous appearance. From the depths of the small frames came a hoarse, many-toned buzzing which gave the impression that a colony of winged insects had been stirred to anger.”

_Enemies._--There is little doubt in my mind that the roadrunner’s worst enemy is man. Man wants quail to shoot. Man sees a roadrunner chasing young quail or finds a young quail in a roadrunner’s stomach and lo, thumbs turn down, another name goes on the black list, and the roadrunner’s doom is sealed. In many a southwestern State there have been chaparral-cock drives and contests, bounty on roadrunners, newspaper stories and editorials defaming the bird. Too, there are those who _eat_ roadrunners, or who chase and shoot them for “sport.” In populated sections the roadrunner has a hard time. Where man appears the roadrunner all too frequently disappears.

Certain predatory birds and mammals doubtless prey occasionally on the roadrunner, though adult birds usually are swift or wary enough to evade such enemies as coyotes and hawks. Crows and ravens doubtless eat some roadrunner eggs and young. Even the snakes themselves may take a hand in keeping the snake killer tribe from becoming too numerous. Remains of a roadrunner were found in the stomach of a red-tailed hawk collected by Dr. Josselyn Van Tyne in Brewster County, Tex., February 28, 1935 (Van Tyne and Sutton, 1937).

W. L. McAtee (1931) in his timely “Little Essay on Vermin” so justly states the case of roadrunner _versus_ mankind that his comments are of special significance here:

The Road-runner is persecuted almost throughout its range
* * * as an alleged destroyer of Quail eggs, and state
bounties are even paid for its destruction. Yet the
Road-runner never has been shown to be a special enemy of
Quail, and it cannot eat their eggs except during a brief
season. The Road-runner is as nearly omnivorous as any of
our birds, eating anything in its habitat that is readily
available and swallowable. No doubt it will eat Quail eggs,
but it is equally certain that not one meal in a thousand
of all the birds at all times consists of Quail eggs.

The Road-runner actually lives up to its repute of killing
rattlesnakes; without doubt, it eats more scorpions,
centipedes, and tarantulas * * * than it does Quail eggs,
and it is a voracious consumer of grasshoppers. It is a
unique bird, not only in our fauna but in that of the
world, has extremely interesting habits, and in its choice
of food in the long run undoubtedly does more good than
harm. Its persecution is all but baseless and is thoroughly
unjustified.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Southwestern United States south to central Mexico.

The range of the roadrunner extends =north= to north-central California (Navarro River, Owens River, and Death Valley); Colorado (Meeker, Cañon City, and Las Animas); and southern Kansas (probably Caldwell and Arkansas City). =East= to Kansas (Arkansas City); central Oklahoma (Norman); Texas (Fort Worth, Kerrville, and San Antonio); Tamaulipas (Matamoras, Soto La Marina, and Tampico); and Pueblo (San Salvador). =South= to Puebla (San Salvador); Mexico (Tenango); and Jalisco (Zapotlan). =West= to Jalisco (Zapotlan); Baja California (Cape San Lucas, San Cristobal Bay, and Rosario); and California (San Diego, Mentone, Santa Barbara, Sebastopol, and Navarro River).

_Casual records._--The roadrunner is not known outside of its normal range, but a remarkable occurrence was the finding of a specimen at Marshall Pass, Colo., at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, on October 12, 1907.

_Egg dates._--Arizona: 20 records, April 5 to June 24; 10 records, April 20 to June 3, indicating the height of the season.

California: 73 records, March 4 to July 16; 37 records, March 25 to May 2.

Mexico: 5 records, April 16 to May 16.

Texas: 57 records, March 18 to July 5; 29 records, May 3 to June 1.

COCCYZUS MINOR MAYNARDI Ridgway

MAYNARD’S CUCKOO

HABITS

The mangrove cuckoo (_Coccyzus minor minor_) long remained on the A. O. U. Check-list, including the third edition, based on Audubon’s record of a specimen taken on Key West and figured in his Birds of America. Ridgway (1916) examined this specimen and identified it as the Jamaican mangrove cuckoo (_C. minor nesiotes_). Now the 1931 Check-list makes the statement that all Florida records prove to be referable to _C. minor maynardi_, and excludes both of the above races from the list.

The mangrove cuckoo, of which Maynard’s is a subspecies, is well named, for all races of the species seem to be confined almost exclusively to the mangroves. The only one I ever saw was encountered on our way to Alligator Lake through the mangrove forests near Cape Sable, Fla. Arthur H. Howell (1932) collected the only two he ever saw “in a black mangrove swamp near the mouth of Allens River, below Everglade.”

_Nesting._--Audubon (1842) says: “The nest is slightly constructed of dry twigs, and is almost flat, nearly resembling that of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.” Mr. Howell (1932) says that “a set of two fresh eggs (now in the Florida State Museum), which the female was beginning to incubate, was taken at Chokoloskee, June 4, 1903, from a nest 7 feet up in a red mangrove.”

Oscar E. Baynard tells me that he took two sets of two eggs each, on May 25 and 26, 1912, in a dense stand of extra large mangroves in Pinellas County, Fla.

_Eggs._--The eggs of Maynard’s cuckoo are practically indistinguishable from those of the yellow-billed cuckoo. The measurements of 20 eggs average 30.77 by 23.18 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =33.1= by 22.6, 31.4 by =24.3=, =27.9= by 22, and 30 by =21.6= millimeters.

_Young._--Audubon (1842) says that this cuckoo “raises two broods in the season, and feeds its young on insects until they are able to go abroad.”

_Plumages._--I have seen no nestlings of this species, but a fully grown juvenal, taken in the Bahamas on June 23, has the upper parts everywhere “buffy brown” to “wood brown,” including the crown, which in the adult is grayer than the back; there are narrow white tips on the secondaries, tertials, and all the wing coverts; there are still narrower white tips on the primaries, which soon wear away; the black space below and behind the eye, so conspicuous in the adult, is lacking; the central tail feathers are paler grayish brown terminally than in the adult, and the lateral tail feathers are pale “wood brown,” instead of black, with whitish, instead of pure white, tips, which are also less clearly defined than in the adult. I have seen young birds in this plumage in July, August, and September. The body plumage is probably molted during the fall, but the juvenal wings and tail are apparently retained until the following spring or summer; I have seen young birds molting wings and tail in February, June, and August, thus assuming a fully adult plumage.

_Food._--The food of Maynard’s cuckoo consists mainly of caterpillars, spiders, moths, flies, grasshoppers, and other insects; probably a few small fruits and wild berries are eaten at times. Mr. Howell (1932) says: “The stomachs of two birds taken at Everglade, Florida, in March, were examined in the Biological Survey; the food in one consisted mainly of hairy caterpillars (Arctiidae), the stomach being well lined with caterpillar spines; the remains of 3 mantids (_Stagmomantis_) composed the remainder. The other stomach contained 4 long-horned grasshoppers, lepidopterous larvae, locustid eggs, mantids, and spiders.”

_Behavior._--Maynard (1896) says of the habits of this cuckoo in the Bahamas:

They frequent thickets near fields, and often venture
into the open grounds to feed, but usually when taken by
surprise in such places, quickly retreat to the thickets,
into which they glide easily. Once within the cover of
the shrubbery, their movements are quite deliberate, but
when approached, they will jump from branch to branch, and
although not appearing to hasten, will manage to elude
their pursuer, and become quickly lost in the foliage.

The flight of this Cuckoo is rapid, the wings being moved
quickly, much more so than in the Black or Yellow Billed
Cuckoos. They generally move straight forward, without
doubling, and when they wish to alight, they do so suddenly
without any preliminary lessening of their speed, and as
soon as their feet touch the branch the tail is dropped
perpendicularly. As a rule, this Cuckoo is rather shy,
especially when in open fields, but I once came across one
near Mathewstown, Inagua, that was feeding in an old field,
that was very tame, allowing me to approach within ten
feet of it, as it deliberately searched for food among the
remains of partly decayed stubs of trees which stood in the
clearing.

_Voice._--On this subject Maynard says:

All through the winter Maynard’s Cuckoo is rather silent,
but as spring approaches they begin to utter their singular
cries, and at times, more especially before rain, are quite
noisy. The notes may be represented by the syllables “ou,
ou, ou, ou, qua, qua, qua, coo, coo, coo.”

The “ous” are given very rapidly, with a decided
Cuckoo-like intonation.

The “quas” are harsher, more like the notes of the Bahama
tree frog, and are not hurriedly given. The last three
notes are more Cuckoo-like than any of the others. The
first four notes are often omitted, then the harshly and
gravely given “quas” begin the song and on occasions these
quaint sounds are not followed by any other notes, then it
is sometimes difficult to distinguish the notes uttered
from some of those uttered by the large Andros Island
Cuckoo, Saurothera andrea. This varied song is uttered in
the early morning with rather more energy than at any other
time in the day.

_Field marks._--The Maynard’s cuckoo might easily be mistaken for a yellow-billed cuckoo, as it doubtless often has been, the tail markings being practically the same. But the underparts are decidedly washed with “pinkish buff” and “cinnamon-buff,” though these parts are not so deeply colored as in the mangrove cuckoo. If clearly seen at close range, the grayish crown and the black area behind and, narrowly, below the eye are good field marks.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Northeastern South America, Central America to central Mexico, the West Indies, and southern Florida.

The range of the mangrove cuckoo extends =north= to Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands and San Blas); Tamaulipas (Alta Mira); Yucatan (Izamal, Temax, Chichen-Itza, Cozumel Island, and Mujeres Island); western Cuba (Isle of Pines); Florida (Anclote Keys and Cape Florida); the Bahama Islands (Berry, Eleuthera, and Watling Islands); the Dominican Republic (Monte Cristi, Sosua, and Seibo); Puerto Rico (Desecheo, Culebra, and Vieques Islands); and the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, Tortola, and Virgin Gorda). =East= to the Virgin Islands (Virgin Gorda); the Leeward and Windward Islands (Antigua, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Santa Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada); and Trinidad. =South= to Trinidad; northern Venezuela (Aruba Island); Panama (Chiriqui); and Costa Rica (San Jose and Puntarenas). =West= to Costa Rico (Puntarenas, Pozo del Rio Grande, and Pigres); Nicaragua (Greytown and Chinandega); Honduras (Roatan Island and Puerto Caballo); El Salvador (La Libertad); western Guatemala (near Ocos); Oaxaca (Cacoprieto); and Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands).

The range as outlined is for the entire species, which has been separated into several subspecies, only one of which is found in North America. This race, known as Maynard’s cuckoo, _C. m. maynardi_, is found in the Bahamas, Cuba, and the southern part of Florida, including the Florida Keys.

_Migration._--Apparently only Maynard’s cuckoo is migratory, and this only in the Florida part of its range. Early dates of arrival in Florida are: Gator Lake in Monroe County, March 22, and Punta Rossa, March 29. A late date of departure from Key West is September 19.

_Egg dates._--Florida and the Keys: 13 records, May 17 to July 10.

COCCYZUS AMERICANUS AMERICANUS (Linnaeus)

YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO

PLATES 6, 7

HABITS

The yellow-billed cuckoo, with its western subspecies, covers practically all the United States and some of southern Canada. It is mainly a bird of the Austral Zone, being much commoner in the Southern States than in the northern portions of its range. In New England it is not so common as the black-billed cuckoo, though in some seasons it seems to be a familiar bird. Originally it was probably a woodland bird, but, like many other species, it has learned to frequent the haunts of man, where it is not molested and where it finds an abundant food supply in our shade trees, orchards, and gardens. Its favorite haunts are still the woodland thickets, where the tree growth is not too heavy, brush-grown lanes, shady roadsides, dense thickets along small streams, and apple orchards in rural districts. In dense, heavy woods it is seldom seen.

_Nesting._--Unlike the European cuckoo, both of our North American species usually build their own nests and rear their own young, though they are very poor nest builders and are often careless about laying in each other’s nests or the nests of other species. Major Bendire (1895) gives the following very good account of the nesting habits of the yellow-billed cuckoo:

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is one of the poorest nest
builders known to me, and undoubtedly the slovenly manner
in which it constructs its nest causes the contents of many
to be accidentally destroyed, and this probably accounts to
some extent for the many apparent irregularities in their
nesting habits. The nests are shallow, frail platforms,
composed of small rootlets, sticks, or twigs, few of these
being over 4 or 5 inches in length, and among them a few
dry leaves and bits of mosses; rags, etc., are occasionally
mixed in, and the surface is lined with dry blossoms of
the horse-chestnut and other flowering plants, the male
aments or catkins of oaks, willows, etc., tufts of grasses,
pine and spruce needles, and mosses of different kinds.
These materials are loosely placed on the top of the little
platform, which is frequently so small that the extremities
of the bird project on both sides, and there is scarcely
any depression to keep the eggs from rolling out even in
only a moderate windstorm, unless one of the parents sits
on the nest, and it is therefore not a rare occurrence to
find broken eggs lying under the trees or bushes in which
the nests are placed. Some of these are so slightly built
that the eggs can be readily seen through the bottom. An
average nest measures about 5 inches in outer diameter by
1½ inches in depth. They are rarely placed over 20 feet
from the ground, generally from 4 to 8 feet upon horizontal
limbs of oak, beech, gum, dogwood, hawthorn, mulberry,
pine, cedar, fir, apple, orange, fig, and other trees.
Thick bushes particularly such as are overrun with wild
grape and other vines as well as hedgerows, especially
those of osage orange are most frequently selected for
nesting sites. The nests are ordinarily well concealed by
the overhanging and surrounding foliage and while usually
shy and timid at other times, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo is
generally courageous and bold in the defense of its chosen
home; the bird on the nest not unfrequently will raise its
feathers at right angles from the body and occasionally
even fly at the intruder.

Of five Massachusetts nests, on which I have notes, the lowest was only 2 feet above the ground in some bushes, and the highest was 12 feet up in a crotch near the top of an oak sapling in a swampy thicket near a brook. Owen Durfee mentions in his notes a nest 5 feet up in a juniper on the edge of a swamp. The others were at low elevations in thickets along brooks.

A. D. DuBois has sent me his notes on five Illinois nests; one of these was on the end of a branch of an apple tree, 8 feet from the ground, near a country schoolhouse; this nest contained 3 eggs of the cuckoo and a robin’s egg. Another was near the end of a branch in an osage-orange hedge, 10 feet up; still another was in an isolated clump of willows, between a field and a pasture, 6 feet from the ground.

But cuckoos do not always nest in such low situations; there are several records of their nesting well up in elm trees. Grant Foreman (1924) tells of a pair that nested on his place in Muskogee, Okla., for one or two years, high up in an elm tree; he says: “The next year after nesting in this inaccessible place, they built their nest in a little elm tree in the parking, in a low limb overhanging the curb on an asphalt street where hundreds of automobiles were passing every day, and here in this exposed, noisy place they raised a brood of young. This year they built their nest in a little hackberry tree in the parking along the side of my lot; but here also the nest was on a low limb overhanging the curb on a paved street, and the ice wagon stopped every morning directly under this nest, which was so low down that the driver might have put his hand in it.”

George Finlay Simmons (1915) mentions a nest that he found near Houston, Tex., on the horizontal limb of a young pine near the edge of some woods. He says of it: “The nest was a slight platform about eleven feet up, through which I could see with ease; it was composed of small pine twigs, about an eighth of an inch in diameter and averaging six or eight inches long, and was much more concave than I had expected. This shallow saucer was neatly, though quite thinly lined with a few pine needles, a small quantity of Spanish moss and several tiny buds.”

George B. Sennett (1879) says that in the Lower Rio Grande region of Texas “ebony trees near the ranch, mesquites among cactuses, thorny bushes in open chaparral, and open woodland, were favored breeding places.”

Wright and Harper (1913) found a well-made nest in Okefinokee Swamp, in a tupelo tree at the margin of the Suwannee. “It was placed in a cluster of mistletoe on a horizontal branch four feet above the water, and consisted of sticks interwoven with Spanish ‘moss’ (_Tillandsia usneoides_).”

Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1896) gives the measurements of four nests; the average height of the nests was 4 inches, and the greatest outside diameters averaged 7.63 by 6.25 inches.

Both species of North American cuckoos often lay their eggs in each other’s nests. The eggs of the yellow-billed cuckoo have been found several times in nests of the robin and catbird. H. P. Attwater (1892) writes: “In 1884 I found a Dickcissel’s nest which contained five eggs and one Yellow-billed Cuckoo’s egg. The next year some boys brought me three Black-throated Sparrow’s eggs and one Yellow-billed Cuckoo’s, from the same field, which they said they found all together in one nest.” J. L. Davison (1887) says: “I also found a nest of _Merula migratoria_, taken possession of by _Coccyzus americanus_ before it was finished, which was filled nearly full of rootlets; and in this condition the Robin laid one egg and the Cuckoo laid two and commenced incubation, when a Mourning Dove (_Zenaidura macroura_) also occupied it and laid two eggs and commenced incubation with the Cuckoo. I found both birds on the nest at the same time, when I secured nest and eggs. The eggs of the Robin and Cuckoo were slightly incubated; those of the Mourning Dove were fresh.”

Bendire (1895) adds the wood thrush, cedar waxwing, and cardinal to the list of birds that have been imposed upon, and says: “Such instances appear to be much rarer, however, than those in which they interlay with each other, and the majority of these may well be due to accident, their own nest having possibly been capsized, and necessity compelled the bird to deposit its egg elsewhere. Such instances do occur at times with species that can not possibly be charged with parasitic tendencies.”

Marcia B. Clay (1929) thus describes the cuckoo’s method of gathering twigs for her nest:

Flying into an adjacent apple tree containing a
considerable quantity of dead material, the Cuckoo landed
on a limb, selected a dead twig, and grasping it in her
bill bent it back and forth until it snapped from the limb,
whereupon she flew with it to her nesting-site in the next
tree, arranged this twig and quickly returned for another.
As she tugged at a stubborn twig, her back was arched
and her long tail curved under or waved about. If a twig
resisted too well her attack, the bird desisted at once and
tried another. Always she worked rapidly with great energy,
attacking a twig as soon as she landed in the tree, never
carrying more than one twig at a time, holding it squarely
at right angles to her bill and flying rapidly with long
tail streaming.

The Cuckoo’s concentration in the work, coupled with her
indifference to observers, was remarkable. Not once did she
descend to the ground for material. Not once did she gather
material in the tree in which her nest was located. With
two exceptions the twigs were all gathered from the same
tree. Working thus off and on for an hour or two at a time,
the bird completed the nest. The third night the Cuckoo
was sitting on the nest at dusk, but after two days she
deserted.

_Eggs._--The yellow-billed cuckoo lays ordinarily three or four eggs, sometimes only one and rarely five; as many as six, seven, or even eight eggs have been found in a nest, but these larger numbers may be the product of more than one female. The eggs vary in shape from elliptical-oval to oval, oftener nearer the former, and about equally rounded at both ends. The shell is smooth, but without gloss. Bendire (1895) says that the “color varies from a uniform Nile blue to pale greenish blue when fresh, fading out in time to a pale greenish yellow.” Eggs that I have examined in collections vary in color from “pale glaucous green” to “pale fluorite green.” The measurements of 53 eggs average 30.4 by 23 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =34.64= by 23.11, 33.53 by =25.40=, =27.43= by 22.86, and 29.21 by =20.83= millimeters.

_Young._--The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days; it is shared to some extent by both sexes, but is probably performed mainly by the female. The eggs are sometimes laid on succeeding days, but oftener at more or less infrequent intervals; the young, therefore, frequently hatch at irregular intervals, and young of different ages are often found in the nest.

Snyder and Logier (1931) say of a brood of young that they examined: “The young were quite active when disturbed. They scrambled about the bush, using the wings and bill for climbing. One young which was brought to our camp demonstrated a remarkable reptile-like behaviour. When it was placed on the table and one reached to pick it up, it erected its somewhat horny plumage and emitted a buzzing hiss like the sound of bees escaping from a tunnel in dry grass. This performance was certainly unbirdlike in all respects.”

Francis H. Allen writes to me: “I found a young one in an open field on the ground. I was attracted to the spot by its loud rasping cry. It fluttered along when I approached, but it could not fly from that position, in rather long grass, though wings and tail were pretty well fledged. When I picked it up, it pecked at my finger angrily. It seemed as fierce as a young hawk, and its rasping cry was probably calculated to inspire terror in its enemies. I placed the bird on a bough of a Norway spruce, where it took a characteristic cuckoo attitude and seemed much more at home than on the ground.”

Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw has sent me some notes on the weights and development of young yellow-billed cuckoos. One “well-grown” young was weighed for three days in succession before it left the nest, at 6 a. m. each morning. It weighed 28.8 grams the first morning, 31 grams the second, and only 26 grams on the third, August 6. The interesting point is that the loss of weight came with the sudden development of the plumage, of which he says: “When I visited the nest on August 5, at 6 a. m., his feathers resembled the quills of a porcupine, long and bluish, stretched out over his wings and back. At 7 p. m., these quills had all opened and the bird had taken on the resemblance of an adult cuckoo. Correspondingly, the following morning, he had lost 5 grams in weight. He left the nest on August 6.”

At another nest a young bird weighed 25 grams on August 25, 27.6 on the 26th, 32.9 on the 27th, and only 28.9 grams on the 28th; this bird left the nest on August 29, with feathers unsheathed. He says that during the unsheathing process the young bird dressed its feathers continually; “the wings, the tail, the scapulars, the rump, and breast all shared alike, then with the feet he would work about the head and throat. When hungry he would pause and call a low _cuk-cuk-cuk-cur-r-r-r-rrr_. If the parent did not come soon, these calls increased in number. While feeding, his wings would vibrate rapidly, and after the parent left his call was more of contentment, a short _curr_, or a _cuk-currrrr_. When excreting, he simply backed up to the edge of the nest.”

_Plumages._--Bendire (1895) says: “The young when first hatched are repulsive, black, and greasy-looking creatures, nearly naked, and the sprouting quills only add to their general ugliness.” This is a very good description, and the young birds do not improve much in appearance during the period of early growth. The body is well covered with the long, pointed feather sheaths until the young bird is more than half grown. But the sheaths burst, the juvenal plumage appears, and the young bird is well feathered before the time comes to leave the nest.

Dr. A. H. Cordier (1923) describes this process very well as follows:

At the end of seven days the young Cuckoo resembled a
porcupine more than a bird. I now cut the limb holding
the nest and brought it to the ground. Within three feet
of it I then put up the umbrella tent that I might at
close range observe minutely the rapid transition of the
porcupine-looking object into a fully feathered, beautiful
Rain Crow. * * *