136 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



guides. The eggs of the hosts are larger in some cases, smaller in 

 others, than those of the parasite. 



The number of eggs laid in one season by one female is unknown, 

 but that the number may be fairly large is suggested by an adult 

 female (collected by J. G. Williams at Nairobi, Kenya Colony, on 

 July 8, 1948) that had an unshelled egg in the oviduct, three discharged 

 egg follicles in the ovary, and four ovarian eggs more or less enlarged 

 and yolking. Nothing is laiown as to the interval between eggs, 

 although uncritical, gross examination of two discharged follicles in 

 the ovary of a hen I shot in the Kakamega district of Kenya Colony 

 showed so little difference that it seemed unlikely that there could 

 have been more than a day or two between them. 



Whether or not all the eggs of a single female honey-guide are 

 deposited in nests of a single species of victim is not known. That 

 the egg is laid directly into the nest of the host seem.s a valid assump- 

 tion. Two observers have told me of seeing a honey-guide entering 

 the nest hole of its victim and then subsequently have examined the 

 nest and found the parasite's egg in it. No one has reported seeing a 

 honey-guide fly into a nest with an egg in its bill. Even in the case of 

 the European cuckoo, where so many writers have repeated the old 

 story of the bird laying its egg on the ground and then putting it 

 into the nest with its bill, the evidence is all for direct laying in the 

 nest. The only reason I stress this point is that the early and quite 

 unreliable notes of the Verreaux brothers, quoted by Hartlaub, Des 

 Murs, and a few other authors, include a statement to the effect that 

 the hen lays its egg on the bare ground and then carries it in its bill 

 to a previously located fosterer's nest, from which it then removes an 

 egg. The Verreaux brothers also state, without any supporting 

 evidence, that one female honey-guide laid three eggs, each one in the 

 nest of a different species of victim. Inasmuch as a century later we 

 have no information as to the details of oviposition and host specificity, 

 these unsupported statements cannot be accepted as factual. 



An incomplete observation, related to me by Mr. H. M. Millar of 

 Durban, suggests the possibility that the male honey-guide may at 

 times accompany the female when the latter is about to lay. As 

 described in the discussion of the black-collared barbet, Lybius 

 torquatus, as a host of this bird, Miliar once saw a "pair" of these 

 honey-guides at a nest hole of the barbet. The latter chased away 

 the male honey-guide whereupon the female Indicator slipped into 

 the nest. Unfortunately, it was not possible for Millar to examine the 

 contents of the nest subsequently. Purely from other aspects of its 

 life history, I find it difficult to believe that the male regularly accom- 

 panies the hen to nest holes of potential victims, as there are no data 

 suggesting anything comparable to mating in these parasites. That 



