No. 28. The Road-Runner.

The road-runner (Celeritas magnifica) of the American Southwest is familiar to biologists as an outstanding example of anticipatory evolution. The bird relies on its human neighbors to build the roads on which it runs; yet human beings did not arrive in its territory until millions of years after the evolution of the first road-runners. Generation after generation of road-runners stood around in the desert staring into space and thinking, “Now what?” Only when human beings arrived and began laying out highways between their pueblos could the road-runners finally consummate their true destiny, which is to be pursued at high speeds by intelligent but ludicrously ineffectual predators.

Appropriately enough, the road-runner allegorically represents the virtue of patience.