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9

Aramides cacanea, June 19, 1960 II

chirps when frightened - and also 1 Peep and 1 LC note! Then uttered quite a lot of Peeps and Trlls, and at least a couple of chirps when poked.

WR. Uttered a few chirps, after a considerable period of silence, when handled roughly. Then uttered Peeps when following me. Then alternated periods of silence with a few LC Notes when isolated particularly apt to utter LC Notes when isolated when it could hear my voice. Then uttered Trll's when frightened. Then uttered Trll's, Peeps, & chirps when poked.

These tests would seem to indicate that my previous interpretations of the calls of these chicks were approximately correct. The LC Notes are certainly lost calls. The chirps and Trll's may be high intensity distress, or, much more pobably, hostile. The chirps are presumably higher intensity hostility than the Trlls, and/or contain a relatively stronger escape component.

The Peeps and Trlls are so similar in sound that I would have said that the Trll's were nothing more than a high intensity version of Peeping, were it not for the fact that they occur in rather different circumstances. It is possible that the Peeps may be very mildly hostile (lower intensity than the Trlls or chirps), or the result of frustrated gregariousness, or generalized distress notes.

If the Peeps and Trlls and chirps are all hostile, the behavior of the chicks when handled would indicate that the hostile motivation of these 3 patterns is qualitatively (rather than quantitatively different). A chick being handled is usually silent until it utters chirps. It does not usually utter a "crescendo" of calls, i.e. Peep -> Trll -> chirp.

There is no doubt but that the birds uttered LC Notes much less frequently when isolated tonight than when they were isolated on