“The _Paisano_ (countryman), as this bird is called by the Mexicans, or _Corre-camino_ (run-the-road), as the native Californians designate it, is often met in the unfrequented roads that traverse forests of low brushwood, being enticed from its sombre retreats to the openings, in search of its favorite food. And here is often afforded the traveller an opportunity of witnessing its surpassing swiftness of foot. I have several times tested its speed with a good horse under me, and I have in truth been astonished at the almost incredible rate at which it passed over the ground. On one occasion, when approaching Limpia creek (W. Texas), with a small party, on my way to El Paso, I discovered a fine male _Paisano_ in the open road, about one hundred yards in advance. For amusement, I put spurs to my horse and dashed after him, followed by one of my men. For full four hundred yards, I ran him along a road level and smooth as a floor; and over which, with straightened neck and slightly-expanded wings, he swiftly glided, seeming scarcely to touch the ground. And when, at last, he deemed it prudent to seek shelter in the thicket alongside, I had not reduced the distance between us more than fifty yards. “I was told on the frontier that the Mexican rancheros do sometimes run down and capture the _Paisano_ when they find him wandering on more open ground; and such I think is probable, for the one to which I have just referred was going, even to the moment at which he _took cover_, at a rate of speed that could not possibly have been much longer sustained; nor could he, I think, when so nearly ‘blown,’ have risen on wing. Such, at least, is the case with the wild turkey, which I have repeatedly captured in the same way, although his power of flight is greater than that of the _Paisano_.” Capt. John P. McCown, of the United States Army, also observed the _Paisano_ in Texas; and in his observations on the birds of that State, in the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, VI. p. 9, we find the following:—