THE HONEY-GUIDES 53 



cease. The important point, and on this we have no information, is 

 whether in these areas the other mammahan symbionts still cooperate 

 with the honey-guides. 



However, it does seem that in the more civilized regions the ratels 

 have become either very scarce or almost wholly nocturnal (which 

 amounts to about the same as far as a diurnal creature like Indicator 

 indicator is concerned) and the baboons have decreased greatly in 

 numbers. Furthermore, in such areas, relatively few of the natives, 

 compared with those in "unspoiled," unsettled areas, have the free 

 time or the inclination to follow the birds to bees' nests. The 

 potential valence of the human as a symbiont has decreased too 

 greatly for the bird to react to it in these areas.'" 



That the greater honey-guide does not attempt to "lead" humans in 

 areas where it has had no opportunity to connect them with bees* 

 nests suggests that, in areas where it does, it has to learn to recognize 

 humans as potential symbionts and that it has no innate tendency to do 

 so regardless of prior experience. This seems to be essentially similar 

 to what transpires in the learning processes of other, quite unrelated 

 bu-ds. For example, Sumner (1934) found that the young of some 

 western North American raptorial birds do not reveal any inherited 

 ability to recognize living animals as prey, but have to learn to do so. 

 It would seem that the honey-guides probably have an inherited 

 tendency to be interested in bees' nests, as they consistently reveal 

 this with no possible experience of parental action as a model, being 

 reared, as they are, by a variety of hosts devoid of any such habit, 

 and being essentially nongregarious after leaving their foster parents. 

 It would also seem that they probably have an innate tendency to 

 remember and to recognize the creatures they find foraging at bees' 

 nests. Beyond this, we need only to recall, as Nice (1943, p. 64) 

 points out in her study of passerine behavior, that an animal "has to 

 deal with man according to its store of instinctive actions. An 

 animal knows parents and other members of the species. . . . 

 Otherwise the animal knows enemies, and animals to which it is 

 indifferent." 



In a recent analysis of social cooperation in animals, Tinbergen 

 (1953, p. 85) concludes that, so far as present knowledge permits a 

 generalization, this cooperation seems to depend largely on a system 



" It may be that the mechanism here is not too dissimilar from that operating, 

 in a different direction, in protected areas to make the human less fear-inspiring 

 and less an object from which to flee. Thus, nighthawks {Chordeiles minor) 

 nesting on gravel-covered roofs of buildings are said to indulge in injury-feigning 

 reactions considerably less than do terrestrial birds away from towns. The 

 relative absence of shyness in ducks in protected areas or after the close of the 

 hunting season seems to be another similar change. 



