THE HONEY-GUIDES 185 



What seems to be a description of a "sexual flight" comes to me 

 from Captain Pitman, who writes that one evening just before dusk 

 at Albarara, Ankole, Uganda, he saw two lesser honey-guides "follow- 

 ing each other from tree-top to tree-top with a curious, dipping flight. 

 All the time a persistent pee-uw, pee^w, pee^aw was being uttered. 

 I do not know if it was a pair, but I think I am correct in saying that 

 only one of the birds was calling." 



I have never seen any attempt at any posturing that suggested 

 courtship antics, although I have watched male birds for hours at a 

 time. In this my experience is corroborated and amplified by that of 

 Ranger, Skead, and Pringle in the Cape Province and by other 

 observers in other parts of Africa. Skead (1951, p. 53) writes that 

 he has seen no displays whatever, the general disposition of the birds 

 being one of lazy indifference. Two birds, not proved or even stated 

 to be a pair, although written of as though they might have been, 

 stayed together in Skead 's garden from July to September, and were 

 "for the most part, amiable but sometimes one for no apparent reason 

 would attack the other (perhaps sitting in another tree) and chase it up 

 and down the garden two or three times until the chased bird, closely 

 followed, dived into a shrub where the two would sit panting heavily. 

 Either the display would then cease or the aggressor would attack 

 again. All this was done in silence." 



A peculiar bit of behavior, possibly connected with what would pass 

 for courtship in other birds, is the following account related to me by 

 J. G. Williams of the Coryndon JMuseum. Near Thilca, Kenya 

 Colony, in July, he came across a remarkable concentration of lesser 

 honey-guides, at least a dozen of the birds in a single large tree. They 

 were perching on the branches, or settling momentarily, after the 

 fashion of a tit, on the trunk itself. There was no bees' nest or other 

 food supply in the tree. 



The birds, which were completely silent throughout, would constantly change 

 their perches, and as they alighted would fan their tail feathers, showing the white 

 outer retrices, and would continue to do this three or four times. Sometimes 

 two birds would settle close together — an inch or so apart — when the tail fanning 

 of both would continue much longer. Frequently a bird would leave its perch and 

 settle on the bare tree trunk, its tail pressed against and fanned on the bark; 

 sometimes they would alight on the trunk with their heads pointing towards the 

 ground. 



After watching the birds for an hour or so Williams shot one of them 

 and foimd it to be a female with an enlarged ovary, perhaps within 

 two or three weeks of breeding. At the shot the other birds flew off 

 and did not return. 



Obviously, it is not yet possible to fit these data into a definite place 

 in the life history of the lesser honey-guide, but the increased duration 

 of tan fanning when two birds were very close together, 'factually 



