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56

Rhamphocelus [[Ramphocelus]], Apr. 30, 1960, II      

always remained absolutely motionless. Right at dawn he almost always sang in the diagonal upright sitting posture shown on the preceding page, or when hanging vertically to the side of his cage. Later on the morning, after his singing had declined in frequency and apparent intensity, he began to sing in a variety of ordinary sitting postures, even with the wings slightly drooped so that the bright rump was quite conspicuous. It is possible that the original diagonal upright posture was slightly ritualized, as it was so rigid, but the other sitting postures accompanying singing later on obviously were not ritualized.

The male did not sing absolutely steadily. He would sing steadily for a minute or so, and then fly around the cage for a few seconds (some times going down to the feeding dish and/or approaching the female — see below), before resuming singing for another minute or so. During the hour after sunrise, his periods of singing became gradually shorter while he spent more and more time in other activities.

Right after dawn, the male always uttered quite a lot of single "Auh" CN's and nothing else, while he was flying about between periods of singing. Later on, he continued to give "Auh" CN's in such circumstances, but once (at least) he gave a definite burst of "Wheeeeet" CN's during a brief flight.

When the male landed near the female during his flights between periods of song, both birds were usually silent and did not perform any special display of any sort. Occasionally, however, one or both birds (always the female) would utter a brief burst of MCN's, of the Wh N type, when the male came particularly close.

More interesting was one more spectacular display which occurred regularly in the morning, when the female landed quite near the singing male, on the same perch, about 6" away from the male. He immediately stopped