THE HONEY-GUIDES 43 



pp. 40-42) similarly notes that the ratel can climb, "perhaps not with 

 the ease of a cat, but it attains its object, which is always a bees' nest." 



However, when I went to Africa in 1950 I knew of no eye-witness 

 account of this symbiotic relationship between the honey-badger and 

 the honey-guide by a reliable European observer, or by a native known 

 to be trustworthy in making such reports. Indeed, it was one of the 

 main points on which I hoped to obtain some real information. The 

 method used was the simple but time-consuming one of very extensive 

 questioning both by personal conversation and by correspondence 

 with "old timers" — farmers, game rangers, hunters, etc. — whose store 

 of observations would otherwise remain unpublished and eventually 

 might die with them. This was supplemented by searching through 

 early archives in the main bibliographic repositories such as the 

 Central African Archives in Salisbury, the library of the Africana 

 Museum in Johannesburg, and the smaller collections in the libraries 

 of Durban, Pietermaritzburg, King William's Town, and Bulawayo. 

 The net result of all this searching was definite proof that the ratel does 

 accompany the honey-guide to bees' nests, and that on such occasions 

 the bird is the "guide" and the ratel is the "follower." 



The first bit of evidence was supplied by Dr. John Hewitt. He 

 found Dr. Atherstone's notebook in the Alban}^ Museum in which 

 it was recorded that an old Boer farmer named Oosthuizen, at Bush- 

 man's River, once "saw a ratel following a honey bird and make the 

 same grunt that the Hottentot does." This evidence, welcome as it 

 was, was not free of suspicion as it was quite possible that Oosthuizen 

 may have been an uneducated man relating as a personal experience 

 something that he had heard from the natives. This sort of conversa- 

 tional reporting is notoriously prone to such "enliancement" even 

 among people aware of the importance of precise factual accuracy. 



Major Beaton, in answer to an inquiry of mine, kindly supplied the 

 next piece of evidence. He once actually saw a ratel and a honey-guide 

 together in the Chepalungu forest, west of the Mau Escarpment, 

 Kenya Colony, On this occasion, about 8 a. m., he was out hunting 

 with a couple of his Wandorobo assistants when they heard a honey- 

 guide chattering. The Wandorobo are very superstitious about this 

 bird and think it may offend the gods who send it to guide them if 

 they do not follow it, so the hunting was abandoned for the time being 

 and Major Beaton and his boys pursued the sound. They soon found 

 the bu'd perched in a tree about 30 feet high making a gi-eat chattering, 

 and as they came nearer it remained in the tree and did not fly out as 

 a guiding bird usually does. Coming still closer they heard the hum 

 of bees close to the ground, and on peering into the undergrowth Major 

 Beaton saw a native beehive (a hollowed log covered with bark) on the 

 gi'ound where it had fallen from above, and two ratels busily engaged in 



