THE HONEY-GUIDES 97 



his very brief note, printed in the Blythswood Review, February 1932, 

 failed to arouse the attention it deserved, partly because of the limited 

 circulation of that periodical. The additional bits of information 

 recorded below are likewise due to Ranger's continued observations. 



A mounted female scaly-throated honey-guide, supplied by the 

 Kaffrarian Museum, was sent to Ranger who placed it in a favorite 

 call-site tree of /. variegatus. The live bird (male ?) returned soon 

 afterwards, perched not more than 2/2 feet from the mount, and began 

 to give its purring song in perfectly normal fashion. No reaction 

 whatever to the mounted bird could be detected. Apparently the 

 dead mount was nothing more significant than another twig or some 

 inanimate object in the immediate scenerj^ to the live bird, which, in 

 the course of 10 or 15 minutes, used two other perches within 5 feet 

 of the mount and so was in a position to see it from all sides. When 

 one recalls the relative ease with which it is possible to get male birds 

 of many species to display and even to attempt copulation with 

 mounted hens of their own kind, or to drive away mounted males, it 

 seems more likely that the honey-guide recognized the mount as one of 

 its own kind but showed no interest in it, rather than that it did not 

 even recognize it. Since the sexes are alike in appearance, this might 

 seem to suggest a lack of exclusiveness or other indication of "rivalry" 

 or "jealousy" between males at a call site, similar to the situation 

 existing in 7. indicator. 



However, subsequent observations by Ranger (in litt., November 

 1951) reveals that "the calling male at the site does decidedly demon- 

 strate jealousy fchasing away other birds] and uttering a sound of 

 remonstrance each time he returned to his call post, and on the appear- 

 ance of the other bird . . . This holding the site jealously complicates 

 matters: the facts at /. indicator site suggest the absence of 'jealousy.' 

 Also, how does another bird take over calling at the site when jealousy 

 holds sway? In each of these cases I called one whistle-call at or 

 near the one site and this brought the other, or the chased birds, to it. 

 Chasing on November 25 lasted 8 minutes; but on November 4 it 

 was a shorter affair." Still further observations by Ranger and 

 Skead are of interest in shedding more light on this subject. It 

 must be emphasized that the interpretation of the trilling sound as a 

 sort of protest against intruders of its own species in the vicinity of 

 a call site is only a tentative one, although probably correct, for the 

 reactions of the birds are not always uniform. Ranger found that 

 by imitating the whistle-note of the scaly-throated honey-guide he 

 could get the smging male to leave the caU site and come to him with 

 this "protesting" note. Once Ranger was seated between two known 

 call sites, 250 yards apart, on each of which the male birds were heard 

 calling at the time. He imitated the whistle-caU for a few minutes 



