what was on top of, in, or on the other side of things, such as boxes or chairs or even myself! I took both of them up into my lap and stroked their plumage, much to their satisfaction. This caused them during later periods of liberty in the yard to come to me often instead of returning to the cage. On such occasions they seemed to expect that it would be necessary for me to handle them in order to get them up into my lap and offered no objection to my doing so. Once when Archie was in my lap and Terry was in the cage, the latter noted what was going on and tried to get through the wires of the cage to join us. The open door was on the opposite side. He found this, ran directly to us, stopped at my feet and looked up. I lowered my hand, he stepped upon it and I hoisted him up and stroked his back and sides, smoothed out his tail, scratched under his wings, all to the accompaniment of pleased murmurs from him. This manipulation of the youngsters won their hearts and seemed to break down all bar- riers between us. They appear to consider me now as the only source of food and comforts. Julio brought a large alligator lizard, evidently swollen with eggs (assuming that they lay eggs) and having an unusually thick tail--the first tail like this I have seen. It was placed on the ground near the cage and promptly began circumnavigating it, opening its mouth threateningly at the birds within. Archie observed this intently, with spread tail. Later both young birds were put on the ground beside it, but paid no attention to its threats and wan- dered off. Road-runners are associated in the popular mind with the hotter regions of the Southwest and the deserts, and are therefore assumed to like heat. They do like warmth, but these youngsters and even the adult Rhody, prefer the shade unmistakably to the direct sun when shade temperatures are no higher than about 70 degrees. (Even b5)