44 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



eating the contents. When the ratels saw Beaton and his boys they 

 trotted off into the bush. 



This observation, added to that of Oosthuizen, showed that ratels 

 and honey-guides do associate at bees' nests, but there was no evidence 

 that in Beaton's case the badgers had been led there by the bird. A 

 third observation, supplementing Beaton's data and corroborating 

 Oosthuizen's statement, came to me from Sir Robert C. Tredgold, 

 Chief Justice of Southern Rhodesia, who told me that once at Inyati, 

 about 40 miles from Salisbury, he was out in the bush at about 10 a. m. 

 when he heard a grunting, growling sound and also the familiar chatter 

 of a greater honey-guide. As he stopped and listened it came closer 

 and closer until finally he saw an adult Indicator indicator definitely 

 leading a ratel, which kept responding with a guttural growl every 

 time the bird gave its chatter call. When the ratel spied him, however, 

 it ran away, thus ending the episode without arriving at a bees' nest. 

 Sir Robert also told me that he had known two native boys who had 

 personally seen ratels following honey-guides. One of them in partic- 

 ular he praised as being a very observant and reliable naturalist. 

 When asked if he considered their reports as constituting valid data, 

 he replied that, after a lifetime of experience on the bench judging the 

 truthfulness of native testimony, he had no hesitancy in accepting 

 them. 



E. L. Button, District Commissioner at Lundazi, Northern Rho- 

 desia, writes me that he once observed a greater honey-guide leading a 

 ratel near the edge of the Solwezi River at 6:30 a. m. in February. 

 "While being led the ratel was extremely cautious and moved very 

 slowly. The bird was very patient with him and not the usual im- 

 patient, vociferous . . . creature it ordinarily is. A native came 

 too close to them and both disappeared." 



Verheyen (1951, pp. 49, 91-93) also reports an eye-witness account 

 of the ratel and honey-guide association in the Belgian Congo. 



Thanks to the efforts of Mr. J. G. Williams, additional data on the 

 association of the greater honey-guide with the ratel have come to me 

 from several game wardens in Kenya Colony. These men, spending 

 most of their time in the bush and having trained native game scouts 

 of tested reliability reporting to them constantly, are in a very favor- 

 able position to gather and to evaluate such evidence. Mr. Roger 

 A. F. Hurt, Game Department, Thomson's Falls, informs me that two 

 of his native game scouts, whom he has found to be very rehable, have 

 watched honey-guides calling to, and leading, ratels. His head game 

 scout reports having seen this happen on three occasions, once at 8 

 a. m., once at midday, and once at 1 p. m. The other scout saw it but 

 once — at midday. On each occasion the scouts were attracted to the 

 scene by hearing the churring guiding call of the bird, and went to it in 



