42 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The fact that the association of the ratel with the honey-guide is 

 reported consistently by the natives throughout vast portions of 

 southern and eastern Africa is in itself suggestive of the factual basis 

 of Sparrman's account, but by itself cannot be looked upon as con- 

 stituting definite proof, even though at times the details are very 

 suggestive. For example, I once asked a Zulu, who was helping me 

 look for honey-guides, why he kept making grunting noises, to which 

 he replied that it helped attract the bu"ds. Some minutes later, after 

 deliberately talking about other things to break the chain of thought, 

 I suddenly asked him what a ratel sounded like, and without a second's 

 hesitation or reflection, he replied "Just like a native calling to a honey- 

 guide." This certainly suggested that the natives had patterned their 

 "honey-guide technique" on an earlier model, and, to that extent, was 

 evidence that there had been an earlier model. 



There were two difficulties in the way of accepting the ratel story, 

 both based on the habits of this mammal as recorded in the literature. 

 In the first place, the ratel is said to be largely nocturnal, while the 

 bird is strictly a diurnal species, and the inference would be that the 

 two would have only a very brief period at dawn and at dusk when 

 they might get together. Secondly, a good percentage of the bees' 

 nests to which men have been guided by the birds were well up in 

 trees, and as the ratel is said to be unable to climb, it would be a 

 little difficult to account for the lack of discrimination on the bird's 

 part between hives accessible and hives inaccessible to its associate, 

 if the habit had developed with the ratel. I now know that both of 

 these statements are only partly true; the ratel is diurnal to a fair de- 

 gree in unspoiled areas, being partly nocturnal everywhere in its range, 

 and almost entirely so now in areas where it has been disturbed. I also 

 know of ratels climbing, although it is true that they are chiefly ter- 

 restrial. Thus, Maj. K. de P. Beaton (1949), warden of the Nairobi 

 National Park, writes: "I have read that the ratel is unable to climb 

 trees, but I do not believe this, for I have seen a native hive, which 

 was placed in the branches of a tree, broken by one of these animals." 

 Many years ago, Holden Bowker, a reliable observer in the eastern 

 Cape Province, informed Dr. W. G. Atherstone that he shot a ratel 

 robbing one of his beehives about 12 feet up in a tree. Bowker further 

 told Atherstone that he thought the guiding habit of the honey-guide 

 "probably originated with the ratel who climbs trees to get nests and 

 leaves the comb scattered about where the Indicator eats either the 

 grub or the wax" (in an unpublished notebook of Dr. Atherstone's, 

 dated 1853, now in the Albany Museum, GrahamstoAvn). Wilhelm 

 (1950, p. 70-71) in South-West Africa, found the ratel frequently 

 abroad in the daytime and found it climbed to and demolished bees' 

 nests up in trees as well as those on or in the ground. Copley (1950, 



