THE HONEY-GUIDES 153 



Haagner and Ivy (1907b, p. 103) consider Spreo bicolor the usual 

 host in the Albany district, Cape Province, and illustrate a para- 

 sitized set of eggs in which the starling eggs were broken by the 

 parasite. 



Masterston (1916, p. 131) records stiU another nest with three 

 eggs of the starhng and one of the honey-guide. 



Priest (1948, pp. 63-64) lists the pied starling as a victim of the 

 greater honey-guide, as does the Albany Museum's "Guide to the 

 Vertebrate Fauna of the Eastern Cape Province" (1931, p. 159). 

 Lydekker (1916, p. 150) states that the greater honey-guide para- 

 sitizes this starling, but gives no fiu"ther details. 



Plowes once found a full grown chick of the greater honey-guide in 

 a nest of a pied starling at Willow Grange, near Estcom-t, Natal. 



Stuckenberg (in litt.) found the pied starling to be parasitized each 

 year from 1945 through 1947 at Schoenmaker's Kop, about five miles 

 from Port Elizabeth. 



Petronia superciliaris superciliaris (BIyth). Yellow-throated sparrow. 



Gymnorhis superc'liaris Blyth, Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. 14, p. 553, 

 1845. (South Africa.) 



At "Gameston," a farm 15 miles southwest of Grahamtown, Albany 

 district, southeastern Cape Province, Skead (1951, p. 60) observed 

 the fortunes of a pair of yellow-throated sparrows that were nesting 

 in a deserted hole of a black-coUared barbet. On December 12 he 

 heard what sounded like the constant piu-ring sound of a honey-guide 

 chick in the nest, and opened it and found his surmise to be correct. 

 The honey-guide was the sole occupant of the nest and was estimated 

 to be about 16 days old. It left the nest on January 5. Skead writes 

 that he did not observe any adult honey-guides about the nest at 

 the time of egg-laying, and that the young parasite must have dis 

 posed of the young sparrows in some way because there was no sign 

 of them or of their dead bodies either in the nest or on the ground 

 nearby. 



At Kei Road, Cape Province, Gordon Ranger collected a set of 

 two eggs of the yeUow-throated sparrow and one of the greater honey- 

 guide. This set is now in the East London INIuseum. The same 

 observer watched another instance of this sparrow as a foster parent 

 of the greater honey guide, the details of which are given in our dis- 

 cussion of the postnestling stage of the parasite. As in the case 

 observed by Skead, the young honey-guide was the sole occupant 

 of the nest when first seen. 



On December 27, 1951, at "Assegai River Farm," two miles from 

 Seven Fountains, Albany district. Cape Province, Skead found a 

 nest of this sparrow containing a young greater honey-guide. 



