110 bulletin 2 08, united states national museum 



Guiding 



The guiding habit in this species is supposedly similar to that in 

 Indicator indicator, but has been observed by far fewer people and is 

 less fully described in the literature, I never witnessed any sign of 

 guiding behavior in my own field studies of the scaly-throated honey- 

 guide, and my experience agrees with that of numbers of other 

 observers with far more years of field experience — such men as 

 Chapin, Pitman, Ranger, van Someren, and Williams, to mention but 

 a few. However, enough observations have been published to 

 indicate that the species does guide. It would seem that it probably 

 guides less frequently or less definitely than the greater honey-guide, 

 but it should be remembered that the species is more difficult to find 

 and watch and is less common than is /. indicator, and unless seen 

 at close range it may be confused only too easily with the female 

 of that species. The actual observations on record are as follows. 



Near Uitenhage, Cape Province, in February 1895, Ivy (1901, p. 21) 

 noted that "every day one of these birds [variegatus] came up close 

 to our camp, and on six occasions led us to the nests of wild bees 

 among the trees and neighboring rocks. The Honey-guide would 

 perch on some tree and commence calling cha-cha-cha, to attract 

 om- attention. We followed its lead, talking to the bird all the 

 while . . . Wlien we got to the vicinity of the nest, the bird would 

 not go close . . . leaving us to search for the exact spot, which was 

 easily found by watching the passing bees." 



Grant (in Sclater, 1911, p. 728) was guided to wild bees' nests by 

 variegatus several times. "At the Cape the natives say that it is useless 

 to follow a pair, as they are only calling to each other, but that it is 

 the single birds which endeavour to attract attention. I have not 

 been able to prove this conclusively, although it is true that all those 

 which I followed have been solitary." 



Meinertzhagen (1937, p. 745) in Kenya Colony writes of variegatus: 

 "The call to attract is a ka, ka, ka, but we never accepted the invita- 

 tion to follow." 



Chapin (1939, p. 543, footnote) mentions that D. Townley informed 

 him that he had observed guiding behavior by /. variegatus on a 

 single occasion during a period of 12 years in Southern Rhodesia. 



R. I. G. Attwell, Fort Jameson, Northern Rhodesia (in litt., 

 February 19, 1951) writes that he has been led to wild bees' nests on 

 two occasions by variegatus. The bird's call is said to have changed 

 when it reached the locality of the nest. 



