^THE HONEY-GUIDES l97 



A. Roberts (1939, pp. 102-103) states that in the coUectioDS of the 

 Transvaal Museum there is a set of three eggs of this bird (subspecies 

 zuluensis (Roberts) ") with one of the lesser honey-guide. This set 

 was collected at Ingwavuma, Zululand, November 12, 1933. 



Plowes collected a set of three eggs of the barbet with one of a lesser 

 honey-guide at the Matopos Research Station, Southern Rhodesia. 

 The set is now in the collection of the National Museum of Southern 

 Rhodesia in Bulawayo. 



Near Moorddrif t, Transvaal, on December 11, 1924, a native showed 

 me a nesting hole of the pied barbet (subspecies centralis (Roberts) "). 

 In it were three eggs of the barbet and one egg of a lesser honey-guide, 

 aU of which were left for further observation but which perished due to 

 the predatory action of a snake two days later. 



A. Roberts (1913, p. 21) saw a lesser honey-guide trying to enter a 

 pied barbet's nest only to be driven off by one of the pair of barbets. 

 After this was repeated several times, he shot the honey-guide and 

 found it to have a shelled egg in the oviduct. It seems safe to assume 

 it would have laid this egg in the barbet's nest if it had been able to. 



The late H. W. BeJl-Marley informed me that he found the pied 

 barbet to be parasitized by the lesser honey-guide on several occasions 

 in central Natal. The race of the host in that area is affinis (SheUey) .*^ 



Tricholaema diadematum massaicum (Reichenow). Masai red-fronted barbet. 

 Pogonorhynchus massaicus Reichenow, Journ. Ornith., vol. 35, p. 59, 1887. 

 (Loeru, Tanganyika Territory.) 



All that I know of the red-fronted barbet as a victim of the lesser 

 honey-guide is that van Someren writes me that he has often seen the 

 latter at nest holes of this barbet. He has collected nestling lesser 

 honey-guides from such nests (one in each nest) in the Ngong area, 

 Kenya Colony, from April to July; in the near vicinity of Nairobi he 

 found similar lone nestlings in several nests in May and August. It 

 would seem that the red-fronted barbet is probably a frequent host of 

 the lesser honey-guide. 



Fuggles-Couchman and Elliott (1946, p. 335) saw an Indicator minor 

 acting in a very inquisitive manner about a nest of a Masai red-fronted 

 barbet near Monduli, Tanganyika Territory, on January 30. The 

 honey-guide was finally "chased off by the agitated barbets only with 

 great difficulty." 



" Notopogonius leucomelas zuluensis Roberts, Ann. Transvaal Mus., vol. 14, 

 pp. 237, 240, 1931. (Mkuzi River, east of Ubombo, Zululand.) 



*'' Notopogonius leucomelas centralis Roberts, Ann. Transvaal Mus., vol. 15, 

 p. 26, 1932. (Rustenberg, Transvaal.) 



" Pogonorhynchus afinis Shelley, Proc. Zool. Soc. London (1879), p. 680, 1880. 

 (Weenen, Natal.) 



