THE HONEY-GUIDES 29 



enemy. Hoesch argues that originally the bees, because of their 

 stings, were also regarded as "enemies" by the bu'd in the same sense, 

 and that the honey-guides led men to these enemies, and only 

 incidentally to honey and comb. 



Although Hcesch's explanation is not convincing, it should be pre- 

 sented more fully in his own terms He explains that incidental or 

 even only occasional meeting of the bu'd with a ratel at a bees' nest, 

 even if it happened much less often than a joint arrival there by a 

 human and the bird, might be sufficient to develop the memory 

 capacity of the Indicator with respect to the ratel so as to cause the 

 bird to react to it as it does to a human. But Hoesch finds it difficult 

 to accept the idea that the ratel should be as suitable an object for 

 such a symbiotic relationship as the savage human (assuming, as he 

 does, that the latter was already on the scene when the habit started) . 

 He considers that the role a honey-guide might play in cooperation 

 with a ratel cannot be very great for two reasons. Firstly, he assumes 

 that if the collaboration were even partly to offset the bees as 

 "enemies" from the birds' standpoint, the native human would be 

 a better collaborator than a ratel inasmuch as the former would kill 

 the bees or at least get rid of them by smoking them out while the 

 ratel would do neither, but, on the contrary, might cause the bees to 

 become more excited and aggressive towards itself and its avian 

 accomplice. This is a highly speculative assumption and does not 

 carry any real conviction. Secondly, he assumes that after a ratel 

 finished its meal at a bees' nest it would be only a lucky accident if 

 anything was left for the bird. This suggests very clearly that he 

 never saw a bees' nest after its demolition or he would have noted 

 the strewn bits of comb left lying all about. Hoesch writes further 

 that the fact that Indicator does sometimes (he writes "frequently") 

 lead men to large beasts of prey or to snakes instead of to bees seems 

 to signify that in both cases what the bird is doing is only to lead 

 one to an enemy. 



While this conclusion may be safely dismissed on the basis of many 

 data presented in our discussion of the guiding habit, a further point 

 elaborated by Hoesch deserves mention, even though it too seems 

 erroneous. He points out that the behavior of the honey-guide is 

 peculiar ^ in that it not only announces or indicates but also leads or 

 guides, and that the human is in the position of releasing the reactions 

 of both announcing and leading. Cases of simple announcing are 



• Maclaud (1906, pp. 123-124) writes that a bulbul, Baeopogon indicator, shows 

 the natives the location of wild bees' nests, and after the Negroes have taken the 

 honey the bird feeds on the larvae in the comb! This is, of course, an error, the 

 habit of Indicator indicator being here transposed to the account of a similarly 

 colored (and named) bulbul. 



