188 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



To take a few typical observations, I extract the following from my 

 field notebook. 



November 6. This morning I spent three hours in the blind at /. minor's 

 favorite call spot. Heard and saw the bird as I approached at 8:05 a. m.; it flew 

 downhill to the kloof as I came near but at 8:25 I heard it nearby again (could not 

 see it from the blind). Soon it flew over to its usual perch where it was in plain 

 view, and from then until 11:05 it gave a series of 15 to 30 kleuu notes every few 

 minutes, but it never came down to a piece of honeycomb I had placed close to 

 the blind the day before. 



November 10. /. minor first heard at 7:56 a. m. At 8:25 I went to the hill- 

 side call site where I found it calling from the cabbagewood tree. It flew oflf at 

 8:30 to the thorn tree near the blind, called one series of notes on arrival there, 

 and then flew back to the cabbagewood tree and called from there, with intervals 

 of not more than one minute between series, until I left at 9:30. The series of 

 notes were shorter today, only 10-17 notes ... At 10:40 I returned; the bird 

 was still perched in the cabbagewood tree calling as before. It was almost con- 

 cealed from below by the foliage, and as I stood directly beneath it I "squeaked" 

 several times, which caused it to flit down from one perch to another until it was 

 on the lowest branch only 15 feet from me, looking at me and jerking about from 

 one position to another. It flew to another cabbagewood tree nearby, and kept 

 looking in my direction, then back to the first tree. I stopped squeaking and it 

 went ofl" to the thorn tree near the blind. I then began squeaking loudly but it 

 remained and kept calling in the hilltop thorn tree ... At 11:20 it went back 

 to the first cabbagewood tree and called from there every 60 seconds until I left 

 at 12:05. 



Judging by analogy with Indicator indicator it seemed that the bird 

 calling so steadfastly day after day from the caU site was probably a 

 male but, inasmuch as the sexes of I. minor cannot be distinguished 

 in the field, this point cannot be proved. However, Pringle told me 

 that once at Bedford he shot a lesser honey-guide that had been giving 

 a series of kleuu notes from a definite tree for some time and found it 

 was a male. On his farm near Bedford, Pringle estimated that the 

 known call sites of different individual lesser honey-guides are 1 to iK 

 miles apart. At Umtaleni, Ranger and Skead in November 1952 

 shot a calling bird from a well established call site and found it to be 

 a male. The next day there was another individual (presumably a 

 male) calling from the same favorite branch of the tree. Thus, there 

 seems to be a definite tendency for continuity of occupancy of such 

 favored call sites. 



In no case during our joint intensive observations in the Umtaleni 

 VaUey did either Ranger, Skead, or I ever see a second lesser honey- 

 guide come to the call site, as we did in the case of the greater honey- 

 guide. However, a year after my departure. Ranger and Skead were 

 back at the same spot and trapped three lesser honey-guides alive. 

 One of them conveniently layed an egg in the cage, thereby identifying 

 itseK as a female. This bird was marked and then released just below 

 a calling male (?) at the favorite caU site. The latter immediately 



