196 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



barbet as a fosterer, but it is not clear if he based his statement on 

 Layard, and Haagner and Ivy, or on new, unpublished data. 



Near where Haagner and Ivy made their observation at Bedford, 

 in the eastern Cape Province, Pringle (in litt.) has found eggs of 

 Indicator minor in many nests of the pied barbet. Usually there was 

 but one of the honey-guide's eggs in a nest with two or three of the host. 

 On one occasion he found two eggs of each in the same nest. I am 

 much indebted to him for the following, more detailed descriptions 

 that he sent to me. At Bedford on October 14, 1947, he found two 

 parasitized nests of this barbet; one nest had one egg and the other had 

 two eggs of the lesser honey-guide. All the honey-guide eggs were 

 fresh. On another occasion, as he approached the nesting hole of a 

 pied barbet in a dry aloe stump, he noticed a barbet in the entrance 

 and a lesser honey-guide in a tree some 15 yards away. He came up 

 to within about 3 yards of the nest before the barbet flew out, and 

 immediately thereafter the hone3^-guide flew in. The barbet then 

 went in after the intruder and dragged it (her ?) out, having gripped it 

 by the back of the neck. As an experiment Pringle then chased off 

 the barbet each time when it came back to the nest, and the honey- 

 guide made repeated attempts to enter the nest hole each time the 

 barbet was driven off. Invariably the parasite was attacked im- 

 mediately by the barbet. This was kept up for fully half an hour, 

 but without success for the honey-guide, which then finally flew away. 

 During all this time Pringle saw only one honey-guide and felt satisfied 

 that it was always the same individual. 



On still another occasion Pringle found a pied barbet's nest con- 

 taining three eggs of the barbet and one of the lesser honey-guide. 

 This nest also was in a hole in an aloe. It was left for observation. 

 When the honey-guide egg hatched, the other eggs (or chicks) dis- 

 appeared. When Pringle examined the nest "the honey-guide chick 

 was then not yet a day old, and yet I could find no trace of eggshells 

 below the nest. This stump was practically perpendicular and the 

 hole fully 12 inches deep." 



If the young honey-guide was reaUy not yet a day old, it would 

 seem that the eviction of the other contents of the nest might have 

 been done by the barbets and not by the young parasite. Yet there 

 is no reason to which one might attribute any such presumed action on 

 their part. 



It is possible that these records from the eastern Cape Province may 

 prove eventually to refer not to typical leucomelan but to the race 

 affinis. Material to decide this point is not available to me. A. 

 Koberts (1940, p. 177) and Jack Vincent (1952, p. 49) record affinis 

 from the eastern Cape Province, while Peters (1948, p. 52) limits 

 affinis to Natal. 



