36 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Guiding is done by adult males, adult females, and by immature or 

 subadult birds (yellow-throated plumage) presumably of either sex; 

 however, the two immature birds actually collected while guiding 

 have turned out to be males — one record of J. G. Williams in Kenya 

 Colony, and one of my own in Natal. There is great divergence in 

 the relative frequency of guiding by male, female, old, and young 

 birds in the experience of different observers. Thus Capt. H. B. 

 Potter, with some 40 or more years of living in the bush in Zululand 

 and watching the birds and the game, was inclined to think that in far 

 more of his innumerable guiding experiences he was led by males than 

 by females, and almost all the leaders were adults. Unfortunately, 

 he had kept no notes and was relying on memory. While modestly 

 disclaiming for his impressions any value as evidence because of the 

 lack of notes, he mentioned that guiding had seemed to him to be 

 indulged in more frequently during the early part of the birds' breed- 

 ing season and he had wondered if, in some admittedly unexplained 

 fashion, it might even be akin to a display on the part of the male. 

 While this would seem to be negatived by the fact that guiding has 

 been recorded throughout all times of the year and by the fact that 

 guiding birds are usually lone individuals, the thought reflects the 

 apparent predominance of males doing the guiding. 



In the eastern Cape Province Skead (1951) records being guided by 

 both sexes, but at that time had never encountered an immature bird 

 guiding. Later, during a fortnight that Skead, Gordon A. Ranger, 

 and I spent in the bushveld near Kei Road studying honey-guides 

 intensively, Ranger and I found that all the recorded guiding in the 

 valley in which we were camped was done by immature birds. Ranger 

 was of the opinion that this predominance of subadult birds doing the 

 guiding agreed with his previous long experience there. In a nearby 

 area, Bedford, Victor Pringle writes me that he has been guided fre- 

 quently by adult males, only once by an immature bird, and never, to 

 his knowledge, by adult females. 



My own experience in Natal and Zululand was as follows: Out of 

 14 times that I was guided by greater honey-guides, 2 were by adult 

 males, 2 by adult females, and 10 by subadult bu-ds. 



J. G. Williams, Nau'obi, summarizes his experience as follows: 

 Adult males and females indulge in the guiding habit equally com- 

 monly; only once has he been guided by an immature bird. In the 

 Mara River area, Kenya Colony, where Indicator indicator is most 

 common, he never saw a subadult bird attempting to guide, although 

 he did notice them coming down to feed with the guiding bird at the 

 bees' nest after it had been chopped open. 



