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59

Rhamphocelus [[Ramphocelus]], May 1, 1960, II              

long-sustained and very regular. (Every once in a while the male would utter single extra "Wheet" or a single extra "Auh" but such cases were relatively very rare.)

I have again come to the conclusion that these "Wheet" CN's would really be better transcribed as "Pssseeeet". They are not really very different from "Keeyoo" or "Kew" notes, except for the fact that they are thinner, more wiry, perhaps slightly buzzy (the "Keeyoo"s are quite pleasant-sounding fluting whistles). It is even possible that some of the "Pssseeeet" notes uttered by the male this morning were even more like "Keeyoo" Notes than usual, perhaps intermediate between typical "Pssseeeet"s and the typical "Keeyoo"s, but there is very seldom any difficulty in distinguishing between the two types of notes.

Most of the "Auh" Notes during the A male's "Pssseeeet-Auh" performances this morning had a faulty wiry quality and rounded slightly thin. This may be perfectly typical of ordinary "Auh" CN's. (I may not have noticed this quality before because I seldom hear "Auh"s close up), or it may have been an indication that these particular "Auh"s were partly intermediate between typical "Auh"s (as uttered by birds flying around in the wild, feeding in different trees) and typical "Pssseeet"s.

In any case, this long series of alternate "Pssseeeet"s and "Auh"s was very reminiscent of, and presumably strictly homologous with the TSN-CHN performances of Black-capped Saltators (see my notes on Saltator, Apr. 28, 1960, p.35).

The bill was opened & closed with each note of this series of this series of alternate "Pssseeeet"s and "Auh"s. I think the tail was also jerked downward with each note, in the same way as during "Keeyoo" song. The first time the male uttered a series of alternate "Pssseeet"s and "Auh"s, he sat in more or less the same sort of diagonal posture