THE HONEY-GUIDES 239 



duction of the sounds is apparently due to the peculiar form of the 

 tail feathers. The two median pairs of rectrices are terminally curved 

 laterally, the three outermost ones are very narrow and short, not 

 unlike those of some species of snipe. In the Ituri forest, Belgian 

 Congo, Chapin heard, throughout most of the year, "a reiterated note 

 of tin-horn quality, the double syllables rising slowly in pitch, then 

 dropping off, and repeated from twelve to thirty times. It may be 

 heard afar, possibly at a quarter of a mile, and seems to come from 

 above the forest canopy . . . From 1910 to 1914 I wondered what the 

 bird could be; and then, on the occasion when I secured my only 

 specimen of Melichneutes, I heard the strange noise given after a 

 second bird of the species had flown off from the same high tree in 

 the forest. It is almost certain that the nyete is none other than our 

 lyre-taUed honey-guide. The 'bleating' of certain species of snipe, it 

 has been shown, is produced by their narrowed outer tail feathers 

 during flight, by vibration of the webs as the air passes between them. 

 Is it not likely too, that the nasal, tooting call of Melichneutes is made 

 by the air rushing past the edges of the same feathers?" 



Since Chapin's one view of the bird at Avakubi, Rougeot has made 

 important additional observations at Oyem, in the Gaboon. He did 

 see and hear the aerial evolutions on a number of occasions, but other- 

 wise his experience was similar to Chapin's in that he more often heard 

 but could not see the bird. Rougeot's latest observations (1951) are 

 worth reporting in some detail. He found that the bird was to be 

 heard on each of his excursions to a certain area in the forest. On one 

 such trip, on April 2, he and a friend were in the forest along the road 

 to N'Zorengone when they heard the lyre-taU noisily announcing his 

 presence but did not see it. About noon they came out on the road to 

 return home and noticed with surprise that the noise of the bird 

 accompanied them for a distance of about two kilometers (they heard 

 it nine times in all) up to the village of Keng-Akok, at the gates of 

 Oyem. There the bird stopped and continued its sonorous evolutions, 

 always remaining invisible. 



On another occasion, in the same place, Rougeot heard it after 

 11a. m., after the lifting of the mist that had covered the forest most 

 of that morning. He noted that the first series of notes heard was 

 incomplete and very feeble, audible at no more than 50 or 100 meters. 

 The series was composed of three notes, frrt . . . Jrrt . . . Jrrt, and 

 Rougeot concluded that this was but a grating of the feathers, lacking 

 the sonorous quality they usually produce. He remarks that in 

 February and March, when the sky is usually clearer than in the dry 

 season, Melichneutes makes less noise than at other times of the year. 



In his first paper Rougeot (1950, p. 63) writes that he never heard, 

 or heard of, simultaneous calling from two lyre-tailed honey-guides, 



