THE HONEY-GUIDES 195 



indeed, there is some reason to question the identification of the 

 honey-guide chicks found in the nests of two races of this little barbet. 

 One cannot help but wonder if they may not have been nestlings of 

 Indicator exilis. 



The Gaboon race of this tinkerbird, P. b. leucolaima (J. and E. 

 Verreaux),^ is recorded provisionally as a host of the lesser honey- 

 guide (/. minor conirostris?) on the basis of one record, a chick of the 

 parasite found in a nest of the little barbet at Bitye, Cameroons, by 

 Bates (1911, p. 503), who writes that a "nestling Indicator, probably 

 /. conirostris, has been found in the hole of a . . . Barhatula leucolaema. 

 The old Barbet was caught in the hole with it, but there was no 

 other nestling. The hole had the entrance just the size of an average 

 finger-ring, and much too small to admit a grown Honey-guide of 

 this species. The egg may, of course, have been carried and dropped 

 into the hole by the bird with its bill. It is a harder problem to 

 explain how the young Honey-guide could ever have got out of the 

 hole if it had remained till it grew larger." Chapin (1939, pp. 544- 

 545) also expressed some doubt that this nestling was /. minor and 

 not /. exilis, as does also Bannerman (1933, pp. 413-415). 



Van Someren writes me that he once took a young lesser honey - 

 guide (/. minor minor) from a nest of this little tinkerbnd (subspecies 

 jacksoni (Sharpe) " in western Kenya Colony. I know of no other 

 instance, and cannot help but wonder if the honey-guide may not 

 have been /. exilis meliphilus, purely on the argument that the nest- 

 hole must have been very small for the lesser honey-guide. However, 

 the fact that the equally small P. pusillus has been reported as a host 

 of /. minor in South Africa, where no race of I. exilis occurs, makes 

 it not impossible that van Someren's identification is correct after all. 



Tricholaema leucomelan (Boddaert). Pied barbet. 



Bucco leucomelas Boddaert, Table des planches enlumin^ez d'histoire na- 

 turelle, p. 43, 1783. (Cape of Good Hope, ex Daubenton, Planches enlumi- 

 n6es, pi. 688, fig. 1.) 



This barbet is widely parasitized throughout southern Africa, and 

 at least four subspecies have been fomid to be victimized by the 

 lesser honey-guide. The nominate race, found in the Cape Province, 

 the Karroo, and the Orange Free State, was first reported as a host of 

 the lesser honey-guide by Layard (1867, p. 243), possibly on the basis 

 of Atmore's observations. Haagner and Ivy (1907b, p. 103) record 

 an egg of this honey-guide from a pied barbet's nest found in the 

 Albany division. Cape Province. Sparrow (1936, p. 5) lists the pied 



** Barhatula leucolaima J. and E. Verreaux, Rev. et Mag. Zool., ser. 2, vol. 3, 

 p. 263, June 1851. (Gaboon.) 



*'' Barhatula jacksoni Sharpe, Bull. Brit. Omith. Club, vol. 7, p. vii, 1897. 

 (Mau, Kenya Colony.) 

 309265—55 14 



