no. 3648 BROOD PARASITISM — FRIEDMANN 7 



Hosken's observations and hope for additional instances to give us a 

 truer picture of the host choices of the sharp-billed honey-guide. 



An Uncertain but Suggestive Record 



While it is obvious that an unidentified parasitic egg record has 

 little usefulness as a potential increment to knowledge, I may mention 

 one such case, chiefly as a suggestion for further field work. Mr. 

 Godfrey Symons, of Estcourt, Natal, informs me (in litt.) that he has 

 in his collection a set of two eggs of the little tinker-bird, Pogoniulus 

 pusillus affinis, with one egg of a small honey-guide, which he con- 

 siders to be Prodotiscus insignis, taken at Wajier, Northern Frontier 

 District, Kenya, Feb. 3, 1941. The honey-guide egg is plain white 

 with a dull texture and measures 15.6 x 12 mm. These dimensions 

 agree with those given by Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1952, p. 748) 

 for an oviduct egg of the slender-billed honey-guide, a fact that thus 

 seems to confirm the identification. All of the previous records of 

 the parasitism of this species, however, have been with small pas- 

 serine birds that are not hole-nesters, birds such as a flycatcher 

 (Platysteira), a warbler (Apalis), and two white-eyes (Zosterops). 

 Mr. Symons informs me that actually he did not see the honey-guide 

 in the field, and that, therefore, his identification is not to be taken 

 as final. 



Further, it should be noted that no one has ever found Prodotiscus 

 insignis at Wajier. I am informed by John G. Williams (pers. comm.), 

 who is familiar with the area, that it is an unsuitable habitat for 

 this species. This leaves two parasitic possibilities: Indicator meli- 

 philus and /. narokensis. Nothing is known of the eggs or of the 

 hosts of either of these, but a small barbet such as Pogoniulus cer- 

 tainly would seem a likely host for either, and also it would seem 

 that their eggs would be similar in size to those of Prodotiscus insignis. 



Literature Cited 



Benson, C. W.; Brooke, R. K.; and Vernon, C. J. 



1964. Bird breeding data for the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. Occas. Pap. 



Nat. Mus. Southern Rhodesia, no. 27B, pp. 30-105. 

 Benson, C. W., and Pitman, C. R. S. 



1966. Further breeding records from Zambia. Bull. British Ornith. Club, 



vol. 86, pp. 21-33. 

 Brooke, R. K. 



1965. Ornithological notes on the Furancungo district of Mozambique. 



Arnoldia, vol. 2, no. 10, pp. 1-13. 

 Clancey, P. A. 



1964. The birds of Natal and Zululand, 511 pp. 



