THE HONEY-GUIDES 121 



The variations in the intensity and frequency of this guiding chatter 

 call are described in our discussion of the guiding behavior. Whether 

 the followdng is a variant of this note is not certain, but it may be 

 mentioned that in his account of the guiding call Skead (1951, p. 57) 

 writes that in January and February 1948 an immature honey-guide 

 often came to his garden. "Its call was a pretty, tripping and 

 musical prrreee-proo (oo as in coot) made with the head brought 

 sharply forward and downward." Later Skead decided it was only 

 an undeveloped, more dl'a^^^l-out form of the vic-tor note of the adult 

 male. 



The notes Skead heard from the young bird may, therefore, have 

 been an undeveloped version of the call note (not the guiding note) of 

 the male, a bisyllabic utterance that may be expressed as vic-tor vic-tor, 

 or whit-purr. This note, which takes the place and fills the function 

 of the song in oscine birds, is given only by the male bird as far as I 

 know from personal observation or from the experience of others, and 

 it is given chiefly (wholly in my experience) from the call posts or stud 

 posts. That it is given elsewhere very occasionally is established, 

 however. At Faradje, Belgian Congo, Chapin heard one give its 

 whit-purr note from a tree within 100 yards of his hut, and the bird 

 was never seen there before or afterwards. Other observers have had 

 similar experiences, but from my ovv^n field work I would still consider 

 it as given chiefly from the call posts. This note is usually given in 

 series, from sLx to eleven notes in fairly rapid succession, with the 

 accent on the first syllable. Each series begins with a low, much less 

 audible rendition of the second syllable and then goes on in fuller 

 volume with the complete notes, and ends with a subdued, seemingly 

 partly "swallowed" first syllable. The complete song, then, may be 

 written as tor, vic-tor, vic-tor, vic-tor . . . vie. At times, when a male 

 on its call post is calling steadily — i. e., when not interrupted or 

 frightened away by human observers or other distracting causes — 

 these series are separated by less than a minute to a minute of silence. 

 Thus, in exactly one hour of continuous observation a male uttered 89 

 vic-tor notes; on another occasion, 65 notes were given in 54 minutes. 

 Once, when we were mapping locations of the secondary call posts, 

 the bhd was chased from each call post as soon as it gave a series of 

 vic-tor notes there (this procedure continued for about 30 minutes). 

 It kept up calling in spite of these interruptions and gave almost as 

 many notes as if it had not been chased about— 62 notes in 57 minutes. 



When giving the vic-tor note the bird perched erectly, and ruffled 

 the feathers of its throat slightly as if the initial tor syllable had to 

 be forcibly expelled. Thereafter it quivered slightly, even the folded 

 wing tips vibrating a little with each accented vie syllable, and the 

 head pumped slightly back and forth with each complete vic-tor. 



