186 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



almost in contact, is suggestive that this action may be not foreign 

 to com"tship behavior. It may be recalled, in this connection, that 

 the pattern of the white outer tail feathers, contrasting -wath the dusky 

 drab olive median ones and the drab color of the entire body and wings, 

 is the only striking color pattern in the bird's plumage, and, further, 

 it may be recalled that the activities involved in courtship display, 

 as generally found in birds, are frequently connected with revealing 

 any such bold markings. We have here a clue, but only a clue. It 

 suggests also the possibility of a mutual type of display, weak as it may 

 be, since it appears that in those instances where two birds were close 

 together both indulged in tail fanning. Further observations are 

 greatly to be desired. Lest it seem too tempting to interpret these 

 data as intersexual behavior, it may be well to recall that A. Roberts 

 (1911, pp. 73-74) collected what he took to be a pair perched close to 

 each other on the same branch of a tree near Boror, Mozambique, and 

 found, on autopsy, that both birds were males. 



As in the greater honey-guide, in this species we find that males 

 resort to certain trees with great regularity and adhere to them most 

 of the day and there give their monotonous, repetitive "song." 

 Ranger (1932), in a short note in a local South African journal, was 

 the first to record this for I. minor, as well as for /. indicator and /. 

 variegatus. He merely noted that all three species have the habit of 

 callmg from a certain fixed spot for months on end, and that the 

 greater and the lesser honey-guides both choose a tree on a hillside 

 for the purpose. The Moreaus (1937, p. 173) noticed the same thing 

 for /. minor near Amani, Tanganyika Territory. Their experience 

 lead them to write as follows: 



One of these small Honey-guides will perch perhaps a hundred feet above the 

 ground, and hour after hour, day after day, and month after month, reiterate 

 its . . . monotonous song-call .... For the last five years we have recorded 

 a noise which begins between May and August and continues throughout the 

 hours of daylight until the following February. The constancy of position all 

 this time has been amazing, and only this season has a rival established itself 

 within earshot, about 300 yards away along the same forest edge. 



At Dowa, Nyasaland, Benson (1940, pp. 429-430) heard I. minor 

 daily, from May to October, calling from a big leafy fig tree in his 

 garden. The bird "would call right through the heat of the day, 

 though . . . never . . . until about an hour and a half after sunrise, 

 and it would cease about the same period before sunset." This was, 

 apparently, a similar call-site situation, even though its full signifi- 

 cance was not specifically mentioned. 



In the Umtaleni Valley near Kei Road, Cape Province, in November 

 1950, Ranger, Skead, and I observed the same situation — lesser 

 honey-guides calling day after day from definite trees. Wliereas the 



