318 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSETJM vol. los 



sound is produced by the wings or the tail in the greater and lesser 

 honey-guide species, while in the lyre-tail it seems obvious that the 

 sound is made by the highly peculiar outer tail feathers. 



Two interesting additional observations have come to me, both 

 having to do with the greater honey-guide. Neuby-Varty writes me 

 that about the end of May, on his farm near Marandellas, Southern 

 Rhodesia, he heard a greater honey-guide giving its victor call from the 

 top of dead branches of a tree. Then it flew towards him, and just as 

 the bird came above him, it started to make a rattling noise, appar- 

 ently with its wings. The tail may have been involved as well, as the 

 bird spread it fanwise while making the noise. Neuby-Varty timed 

 the performance and found the noise (written down as feet-up) was 

 given 10 times, with an interval of about a second between the sounds. 



W. R. Ingram, at Serere, Uganda, informs me that he has found the 

 rustling or drumming flight to be given only towards evening and al- 

 ways in the early dry season. He thinks it has no connection with 

 courtship, as there are no suitable hosts nesting at the time of the year. 

 He first heard it in December 1955, at about 7 p. m. and almost dark; 

 the noise "was most eerie and seemed to come from different parts of 

 the sky almost at once, showing that whoever or whatever was making 

 the noise was moving very fast indeed." Ingram describes the sound 

 made by suggesting that if one blows out the word whukooo with a 

 great expulsion of air on the first syllable and with strong emphasis 

 on the K, and then emptying one's lungs on the ooo, a similar sound can 

 be produced. He goes on to say that "the noise was heard occasion- 

 ally at dusk dming the whole di-y season (December-March) and again 

 in 1956, but the author was never discovered." It was not until 1957 

 that he succeeded in seeing as well as hearing the performing bird. 

 Early in December of that year, at about 6 p. m., he saw the bird 



. . . traveling at a very high speed in a circling, dipping flight. It careened 

 around the sky for about 30 seconds and then dived into a large tree .... 

 Immediately, three or four victor notes came from this very tree .... 

 I knew this tree to be a popular stud-post, all the year round, but still I could not 

 connect the bird in the sky with the honey-guide. 



However, I did not have to wait very many evenings before I got a repeat 

 performance. I managed to pick up the bird in flight with the binoculars during 

 its drumming flight, follow it round and into the same stud-post. At the moment 

 it darted into the tree, if fanned its tail and the outer white feathers were very 

 conspicuous; this is the only time it opened its tail in flight, so I assume the noise 

 is done with the wings. It landed on a prominent perch and I got close enough 

 for a positive determination .... 



This account indicates a similarity in habit to the aerial evolutions 

 of the lyre-tail even more definitely than did our previous data. It 

 also supports the observations of Ranger, Neuby-Varty, and myself 

 that the sound is produced by the wings and not by the tail. 



