THE HONEY-GUIDES 149 



of /. indicator and of I. variegatus. Inasmuch as the former is so 

 very much commoner and more widespread than the latter species, 

 the record is here tentatively referred to the greater honey-guide. 

 Belcher (1930, p. 171) also records a honey-guide egg from a nest of 

 this woodpecker collected in Nyasaland on September 29. This 

 record is also only attributed to J. indicator. 



Of the subspecies smithii (Malherbe) ^^ only one record is known 

 to me, kindly communicated by its discoverer, B. M. Neuby-Varty, 

 who found a nest of this woodpecker early in October 1949 near 

 Marandellas, Southern Rhodesia, containing one hard set egg of the 

 greater honey-guide and two pecked eggs of the woodpecker. 



The Mombasa race of the golden-tailed woodpecker, Campethera 

 abingoni raombassica (Fischer and Reichenow),^^ is reported as a host 

 of the greater honey-guide by van Someren (in litt.), who writes me 

 that he has found parasitized nests in the coastal area of Kenya 

 Colony, each containing a single chick of /. indicator. 



Mesopicos goertae centralis Reichenow. Uganda gray woodpecker. 



Meso-picos goertae centralis Reichenow, Ornith. Monatsb., vol. 8, p. 59, 1900. 

 (Ndussuma, west of Lake Albert.) 



In central Uganda, van Someren (in litt.) found this woodpecker to 

 be parasitized by the greater honey-guide. 



Hirundo albigulwis Strickland. White-throated swallow. 



Hirundo alhigularis Strickland, in Jardine, Contributions to ornithology, 

 text p. 17, pi. 15, 1849. (South Africa.) 



Ivy (1901, p. 20) saw a greater honey-guide leave a nest of this 

 swallow. He examined the nest and found it to contain two eggs 

 of the swallow and one of the Indicator. 



Gill (1945, p. 91) lists the white-throated swallow as one of the 

 commonest fosterers of the greater honey-guide in South Africa, but 

 if this statement has any further basis than Ivy's lone record I have 

 not been able to learn of the data. This swallow is also mentioned 

 as a host of the greater honey-guide in the Albany Museum's "Guide 

 to the Vertebrate Fauna of the Eastern Cape Province" (1931, 

 p. 159). 



Hirundo semirufa gordoni Jardine. West African rufous-chested swallow. 



Hirundo gordoni Jardine, Contributions to ornithology, p. 141, 1851. (West 

 Coast of Africa, i.e. Gold Coast.) 



At Abeokuta, southwestern Nigeria, on Jime 4, 1944, Serle (1950a, 

 p. 88) found a nest of this swallow containing as its sole occupant an 

 almost fully fledged young greater honey-guide. The nest, a solitary 



28 Picus (Chrysoptilopicus) smithi Malherbe, Rev. Zool. (Soc. Cuvier), vol. 8, 

 p. 403, 1845. (South Africa.) 



*^ Picus (Campothera) mombassicus Fischer and Reichenow, Journ. Ornith., 

 vol. 32, p. 262, 1884. (Mombasa.) 



