176 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



nests is usually accomplished after nightfall. The fact that the natives 

 open the bees' nests after dark suggests that no cooperation by 

 Indicator archipelagicus is involved, as it is quite unlikely that this 

 bird is active at night (at least, as far as one may judge from its 

 African relatives). Harrisson (in litt.) writes me that he does not 

 think there is any probability of its guiding humans to bees' nests. 



Songs and Calls 



The calls of this honey-guide are described by Harrisson (1950, 

 p. 334) in Sarawak as follows. "We first heard a noise almost exactly 

 like a domestic cat's 'miaw,' but coming from a 150 foot tree. This 

 was repeated with deep notes and an appendix which I recorded as 

 best I could on the spot as 'miaw-krrruuu.' It was hard to see the 

 bird, which looked indistinctly like a bulbul . . . Shot for identifica- 

 tion, it proved to be yet a fourth male, gonads considerably enlarged." 

 The suggestion of a purring quality in the ending of this rendition 

 reminds one somewhat of the "song" of the male scaly-throated 

 honey-guide. A variation of this utterance is described in Sumatra 

 by Jacobson (in Robinson, 1928, p. 97), who found a bird perched high 

 in a tall tree, uttering incessantly its note, which consisted of the sound 

 ^ repeated several times, followed by a whizzing rrrr. 



Food 



Knowledge of the food of the Malayan honey-guide rests on the 

 reported contents of the gizzaids of two individuals collected. One, 

 taken near Paun, Tebekang area, Sarawak, contained parts of the 

 fresh comb of a beehive as well as whole bees and bee larvae (Harrisson, 

 1950); the other, shot on the Khlong Khlung River, Siam, contained 

 beeswax. Thus, there is an essential similarity here between this 

 species and its better known African congeners. 



Recently Harrisson (in litt, April 1953) watched one of these birds 

 pecking at some largish insects on a branch of a tree about 20 feet 

 from the ground. There were many flowers just below the tree and 

 the insects might have been bees. The bird moved in a rather heavy, 

 almost squirrellike way along the branch while feeding. 



Description 



Adult male: Upperparts of head, body, and wings olive brown to 

 dark olive; the feathers of the back and wings edged with ecru olive 

 to light yellowish olive; primaries, secondaries, and greater upper 

 wing-coverts with pale buffy brownish mner margins, the inner lesser 



