58 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



into the dense undergrowth surrounding the path. One of his Suk 

 guides immediately stopped and said, "When that bird alights, there 

 will be dangerous game." He spoke with such conviction that Sim 

 was impressed, and proceeded slowly to the spot, and there found a 

 rhino lying down. To quote from Sim's letter: 



In case the point should arise, I am prepared to say definitely that the bird was 

 a honey-guide and not a tick bird. What the bird's intentions were must be a 

 matter of conjecture . . . Unfortunately I did not ask the Suk why he was so 

 convinced that the bird wished to lead us to dangerous game and not its normal 

 objective of a bees' nest . . . The incident took place about three years ago. 

 Any attempt to discuss the matter met with a silence so significant that I aban- 

 doned the effort. Since, now discussion has been invited, I offer with fear and 

 trembling the above highly improbable, quite inexplicable, but perfectly true 

 account of what happened. 



It is also to be kept in mind that occasionally bees and dangerous 

 animals may be met with simultaneously with the result that the latter 

 are recalled more vividly than the former. Two such instances, 

 related by Mr. D. Tolnay of Marandellas, Southern Rhodesia, are 

 as follows. Once, near Palape Road, he followed a honey-guide to an 

 enormous termite mound where he found a bees' nest. As he was 

 looking at the bees buzzing about the crevice that led to their hive, a 

 banded cobra came out of another hole in the same mound. On 

 another occasion, in Natal, his father followed a honey-guide to a 

 small cave. He saw bees in the immediate vicinity and some coming 

 out of the cave as well. He entered the dark recess and found some 

 bee comb in a crevice. When he made a fire to smoke out the bees, 

 he was startled when a leopard rushed out past him to escape the 

 smoke. Either of these cases might easily have been written up as 

 evidence of the bird leading to dangerous animals, whereas in both 

 cases there were bees present. 



I need hardly add that I have discarded the great majority of 

 recorded tales of honey-guides leading to large animals because they 

 were not free of suspicion, either on the grounds of incomplete observa- 

 tion (such as the possibility of the nearby presence of unseen bees) or 

 because of loose writing. Even in the case related by Mr. Sim there 

 is the possibility that the Suk guide was repeating a legend which 

 appeared to ring true because of a fortuitous circumstance. If there 

 had been no rhino there, Sim would probably have thought his guide's 

 words were just another naive belief of the natives, and would prob- 

 ably have forgotten the whole incident, but the definiteness of the 

 pronunciation, bolstered by a very few other similar instances, makes 

 me feel it wiser to keep an open mind on the subject, doubtful though 

 it seems. 



If the guiding bird had any such thing as a prearranged plan, it 

 would be almost necessary to assume that it would guide to a pre- 



