170 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Ray Cowley of the Department of Bacteriology, Amiy Medical 

 Services Graduate Laboratories, Washington, D. C, something has 

 been learned of the intestinal bacterial flora of this honey-guide. The 

 following micro-organisms have been identified: Aerohacter aerogenes, 

 Pseudomonas antirubrum, Bacillus jirmus, Escherichia intermedium, an 

 undetermined species of Paracolobactrum, one unidentified form of 

 the Bacillaceae group, and one of the Enter obacteraceae. This list 

 does not necessarily include all the intestinal organisms of the bird, 

 but only such as were either viable or uncontaminated in the cultures 

 by the time they were received in Washington. In general, they 

 represent the common flora of the gastrointestinal tract of most 

 mammals and birds. 



Enemies: Andersson (1872, p. 224) states that this honey-guide 

 sometimes falls a prey to the attacks of the bees, whose hives it seeks, 

 when a number of the bees settle on or about its eyes. The birds* 

 remarkably tough skin is often assumed to be a protection against 

 bee stings, but, of course, the eyes are not protected by it. Pillain 

 (1873, p. 215) also mentions that bees may attack the eyes of the 

 birds, and cites as his source a statement by Le Maout (1843) to the 

 effect that the dead body of a honey-guide was found in a bee tree, 

 and that the bird had been killed (apparently) by the bees. I know 

 of no recent statement or other observations supporting these older 

 ones, and this would seem to argue for the relative infrequency of 

 such occurrences. 



No one has yet reported the greater honey-guide to be eaten by 

 birds of prey or by carnivorous mammals or snakes, but the absence 

 of definite records does not necessarily imply any immunity. 



Description 



Adult male: Forehead and lores dark chaetura drab to fuscous 

 black; crown, occiput, sides of face (except for auriculars), nape, inter- 

 scapulars, upper back, and back chaetura drab to dark olive brown; 

 greater, median and outer lesser upper wing-coverts also chaetura 

 drab to dark olive brown, edged, but not tipped, with white, more 

 broadly externally than internally, the inner lesser upper coverts 

 broadly edged and tipped with bright primuline yellow, forming a 

 broad diagonal band of this color; primaries and secondaries dark 

 olive brown to chaetura drab, the secondaries externally and ter- 

 minally edged narrowly with paler, more olivaceous brown; upper 

 back and middle back dark olive brown to chaetura drab ; feathers of 

 the rump and upper tail-coverts dark olive brown to chaetura drab 

 medially, broadly edged laterally with white, the width of the white 

 margins increasing on the longest upper coverts to the extent that these 

 feathers have only shaft streaks of brown; median pair of rectrices 



