104 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



usual with this species, were nesting in a colony along a bank near a 

 stream. The nest was in a chamber at the end of a straight passage 

 about two feet long. 

 I am indebted to Mr. Vincent for writing me the details given above. 



Stactolaema anchietae whytii (Shelley). Whyte's yellow-headed barbet. 



Smilorhis whytii Shelley, Ibis, ser. 6, vol. 5, p. 11, pL 1, 1893. (Zomba, 

 Nyasaland.) 



Two records, both uncertain as to the identijfication of the species 

 of honey-guide. 



In his report on Nyasaland eggs in the Belcher collection, Benson 

 (1952, pp. 444, 445) writes that at Blantyre on October 16, 1921, two 

 nests of Whyte's barbet were found. One nest contained five eggs of 

 the owner and one egg supposedly of the scaly-throated honey-guide; 

 the other nest contained three eggs of the barbet, three eggs attributed 

 to this honey-guide (!) and one egg of a lesser honey-guide (/. minor). 



If the second of these two cases is correct, it is most unusual; the 

 three eggs identified as /. variegatus measure approximately 22.75 by 

 18 mm., whUe the barbet eggs are 24 by 18.5 mm. This is probably 

 the nest referred to by Belcher (1930, p. 163) as containing 6 eggs, 

 with one of them a honey-guide, the inference being that at the time 

 the eggs now assumed to be /. variegatus were not distinguished from 

 those of the barbet, the one honey-guide egg being the one now identi- 

 fied by Benson as /. minor. 



Lybius torquatus torquatus (Dumont). Southern black-collared barbet. 



Bucco torquattis Dumont, in Dictionnaire des sciences naturelle, ed. Levrault, 

 vol. 4, p. 56, 1817. (Brazil, error= South Africa, Goffin in Schlegel, Revue 

 m6thodique et critique des collections de Museum des Pays-Bas, No. 15, 

 Buccones, p. 4, 1863.) 



The black-coUared barbet is recorded as a host of the scaly-throated 

 honey-guide in Southern Rhodesia and in the Transvaal. As already 

 mentioned in our discussion of the eggs and egg-laying habits, 

 Neuby-Varty (1946, pp. 345-346) saw one of these honey-guides enter 

 a nest of a black-coUared barbet, and then found it had laid an egg 

 in it. He had examined the nest only a few minutes earlier when it 

 had contained only a single barbet egg. Later, on December 4, he 

 examined another nest of this barbet with four eggs of the barbet and 

 two that he considered to be of the scaly-throated honey-guide. This 

 attribution of the two eggs to /. variegatus was based on the fact that 

 three days earlier (December 1) he had watched the barbets trying to 

 keep a scaly-throated honey-guide away from the nest — a very 

 uncertain basis for identification. 



The late H. W. Bell-Marley collected at Isipingo, Natal, on October 

 29, 1930, a set of three eggs of this barbet and one egg attributed to 

 the scaly-throated honey-guide. This set is now in the collections of 



