144 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Set 2: Early October 1948, nest, a hole in the ground, contained 

 two fresh honey-guide eggs and three of the host, the latter all pecked. 



Set 3: September 29, 1946, nest, a hole in the ground, contained 

 one fresh egg of the parasite and three hard set eggs of the host. In 

 this case the honey-guide not only did not peck the hoopoe's eggs but 

 also must have laid in the nest considerably after the host had begun 

 to incubate. 



Set 4: Early October 1949, nest, a shallow hole in the side of a bank, 

 contained one young partly feathered honey-guide and four pecked 

 eggs of the hoopoe. 



At Lake Naivasha, Kenya Colony, November 21, 1951, in the middle 

 of the short rainy season, Belcher was asked to identify a young bird 

 in a hoopoe's nest. He writes me that the nest was in a deep hollow, 

 about 10 feet up in a tree, and when the young bird was taken out 

 it proved to be a fully feathered young /. indicator. The hoopoes 

 were feeding it regularly. This was the only time Sir Charles had 

 found the greater honey-guide breeding at any time of the year other 

 than during the long rains. 



Pbocniculus purpureus (Miller). Red-billed hoopoe. 



Promerops purpureus Miller, Icones animalium . . . , pi. 9, fig. 52, 1794. 

 ("India orientale," error; probably based on a Levaillant bird from Knysna.) 



Three races of the red-billed hoopoe have been reported as victims 

 of the greater honey-guide. 



Haag-ner and Ivy (1907b, p. 103) record an egg of "Indicator 

 sparrmani" found in a nest of this wood hoopoe, apparently in the 

 Albany Division, Cape Province, and unfortunately without other 

 data. This record refers to the nominate subspecies of the host. 



A.Roberts (1939,pp. 100-102) records a set of four eggs of the Angolan 

 race of this hoopoe, Phoeniculus purpureus angolensis (Reichenow),^' 

 with one of the greater honey-guide, collected at Pietersburg, Trans- 

 vaal, December 15, 1933, now in the collection of the Transvaal 

 Museum. The identification of the honey-guide is not wholly certain, 

 however, as Roberts states at the end of his list of host records that 

 some of the honey-guides' eggs may be /. variegatus. The same set 

 is referred to by Priest (1948, pp. 63-64). 



Neuby-Varty sends me the following data. At Umvukwe Ranch, 

 Banket, Southern Rhodesia, in October 1945, he examined a nest of 

 the red-billed hoopoe in a natural hollow in a tree. It contained one 

 egg of the greater honey-guide, hard set, and five eggs of the builder, 

 all of them with holes pecked in them. 



Serle (1950 a, p. 88) records eggs "almost certainly" of /. indicator, 

 one in each of two nests of the red-billed hoopoe at Abeokuta, south- 



23 Irrisor erythrorhynchus var. angolensis Reichenow, Die Vogel Afrikas, vol. 2, 

 p. 339, 1902. (Kakonda.) 



