2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. im 



of each of the honey-guides for which the recent data involve pre- 

 viously unreported hosts, hosts reported for the first time in scattered 

 journals since my last paper, or hosts that offer information requiring 

 significant alterations or extensions of earlier summary statements. 

 There is no need to tabulate more and more instances of a repetitive 

 nature unless they are accompanied by biological observations. 



Besides accumulating such records from the recent literature, I 

 have been able to include much unpublished information kindly sup- 

 plied to me by various friends in Africa and Europe. Among these 

 should be mentioned R. K. Brooke in Rhodesia, G. Duve in the 

 Transvaal, R. Kreuger in Finland (data ex egg collections), H. M. 

 Miles in Rhodesia, and G. Symons, in Natal. To each of these 

 gentlemen I herewith acknowledge my indebtedness and convey my 

 thanks. 



Greater Honey -guide: Indicator indicator 



In my 1955 and 1958 reports on the greater honey-guide, I was 

 able to present data on 106 cases of parasitism on 32 species of birds, 

 or, counting races, on 38 species and subspecies of hosts. The data 

 accumulated since then bring the total to 155 instances, involving, in 

 all, some 35 species or 42 species and subspecies of victims. The 

 additional cases support the earlier conclusions that bee-eaters, hoo- 

 poes, wood hoopoes, barbets, woodpeckers, and starlings are the 

 main hosts of the greater honey-guide. As might have been antici- 

 pated, all the new records are of hole-nesting birds, the "new" hosts 

 comprising two kinds of kingfishers, a roller, and a barbet. The most 

 frequently reported host species are the little bee-eater, Merops 

 pusillus, with 30 records; the pied starling, Spreo bicolor, with 20; 

 the hoopoe, Upupa epops africana, with 19; the golden-tailed wood- 

 pecker, Campethera abingoni, with 8; the red-billed wood hoopoe, 

 Phoenicvlus purpureus, and the crested barbet, Trachyphonus vail- 

 lantii, with 7 each. These are the birds that are the mainstay of the 

 greater honey-guide; all the others, with from six to one records 

 apiece, are the less usual fosterers, some of which, however, are 

 regularly, but less frequently, parasitized. Among these are several 

 kinds of bee-eaters, kingfishers, and barbets. Other hosts, for which 

 only single instances have been reported, can only be looked upon 

 as unusual. 



It is, of course, to be expected that when further data become 

 available from some portions of the African continent that still are 

 entirely unrepresented in our total body of information, some local 

 host species, possibly not yet in our lists, may turn out to be locally 

 important and frequently used hosts in their respective areas. 



