310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. io8 



corner of the Livingstone District, Northern Rhodesia, he caught a 

 female greater honey-guide on the nest of a hoopoe in a hole in an ant 

 hill. The bird had already laid its egg. He watched it go to the 

 nest, and walked up at once, so it was only a matter of seconds, half 

 a minute at the most, that the bird was on the nest. In answer to 

 my query, Winterbottom informs me that this took place during the 

 hot part of the day, between 11 a. m. and 2 p. m. 



A female collected April 28 at Enugu, eastern Nigeria, by Serle 

 (1957, p. 415) had two large yolked ova in the ovary and two ruptured 

 egg follicles, indicating that at least four eggs would have been laid. 

 It may be recalled that earlier data of the same type (Friedmann, 

 1955, p. 136) suggested, in one case at least, that eight eggs would 

 have been laid by one bird. We still do not know what the usual 

 number may be. 



Recently, H. A. Roberts (1956, p. 114) has stated that, when about 

 to lay in a barbet's nest, the hen honey-guide goes there accompanied 

 by the male, and that the latter acts as a lure to draw away the poten- 

 tial hosts from their nest, thereby giving the hen the chance to enter 

 it and deposit an egg. Roberts writes that the female barbet rushes 

 out of the nest hole as the honey-guides approach, and back into it 

 again as they depart a short distance, this performance "being re- 

 peated until she becomes rather exhausted. At this stage the female 

 honey-guide conceals herself nearby, and as soon as both barbets 

 pursue the increasingly bold male honey-guide, the female honey- 

 guide makes a dash for the hole. Usually a short lull among the con- 

 testants now follows which enables the female honey-guide to deposit 

 her egg. Should the barbets try and return too soon, the male honey- 

 guide at once takes action to lure them away . . . ." This account 

 is comparable to one by Millar which I have previously described 

 (Friedmann 1955, pp. 136-137), and as I wrote then, it is "difficult to 

 believe that the male accompanies the female to the nests of the po- 

 tential hosts, as there are no data suggesting anything comparable to 

 mating in these parasites. That the male should act as a foil, to 

 draw off the barbets on guard while the female deposits her egg, seems 

 like too good a story not to have entered into the recording of what- 

 ever may have actually transpired." In the case described above by 

 Winterbottom, no male honey-guide was noted. However, we still 

 have so few du*ect observations of the act of egg deposition that it is 

 advisable to keep an open mind on this matter, even though it seems 

 rather unlikely that the males attend the laying females. 



2. Sharp-billed honey-guide, Prodotiscus regulus 



Serle (1957, pp. 416-417) collected a female at Enugu, eastern Ni- 

 geria, on September 27 that had an egg in membrane in the oviduct 



