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25

Aramides cajauea,  July 5, 1960, VII

still running fast, it began to utter ordinary RP as it continued to run.

From time to time, during this series of experiments,I let the bird alone, on the floor of the animal house, free to do what it pleased. It spent much of this free time running rapidly hither and yon. None of these "runs" were very long-sustained, however.  The bird always stopped for a pause of a few seconds or minutes after it had run for a few seconds. It uttered lots of RP and an occasional LC note while it was running, but always fell silent when it stopped. In addition, it almost always performed 1 or 2 Tsh's as soon as it stopped.  Usually but not always followed by a lot of more or less complete preening. (I think that the Tsh must be the usual introductory movement of complete preening. All the Tsh's and preening of U tonight appeared to be quite autochthonous. Perhaps all the Tsh's of all the birds, so far, have been completely autochthonous. It may be significant that Tsh's first became conspicuous at approximately the same time that the wing and tail feathers began to burst out of their sheaths. It may be very advantageous for a bird to preen as much as possible at this stage.)

Once, when I stretched out my hand toward U, while it was free on the floor, it ran away, uttering relatively long & loud, but not plaintive, peeps. These may have been AlP's, but they were not as long, nor as loud, as the AlP's of WR earlier tonight. And these notes of U's definitely became shorter and softer, more like typical RP's as the bird got farther away from me.

Eventually, I tried isolating U in a box. All it did was utter a few short, soft, single peeps, and then go to sleep!

I then went and woke it up (after it had slept for about 5 minutes).  Whereupon it began to utter quite typical PP's!