THE HONEY-GUIDES 199 



On two other occasions in the same month Benson saw a lesser honey- 

 guide in flight closely pursued by a black-collared barbet. 



Writing of this barbet and the white-eared barbet in northern Zulu- 

 land, Roberts (1930a, p. 25) observed that they were being "much 

 pestered in late October and early November by the attention of the 

 Lesser and the Variegated Honeyguides, one or other of these species 

 always awaiting an opportunity to enter the Barbet nests and deposit 

 its egg there, but being warded off every time by the male Barbet on 

 guard. The noisy chattering of the Honej'-guide and the angry 

 gutteral expostulations of the Barbet in piu-suit . . . quite commonly 

 attract attention. How often the Honeyguide succeeds is difficult to 

 estimate, but judging by the quantity of Barbets and complete nests 

 with young that were observed, the persistence of the Honeyguide 

 is seldom rewarded." 



Judging by the number of parasitized nests of the barbet it would 

 seem, however, that the lesser honey-guide succeeds often enough in 

 its endeavors. Thus, in a later paper Roberts (1939, pp. 102-105) 

 lists three parasitized sets of eggs in the Transvaal Museum; one from 

 Port Shepstone, Natal, February 27, 1922, containing four eggs of the 

 host and one of the parasite; one from Hilton, Natal, November 17, 1926, 

 with two eggs of the barbet and one of the honey-guide; and one from 

 St. Lucia Lake, Zululand, December 1, 1920, also with two eggs of the 

 victim and one egg of the parasite. He further mentions a set of three 

 eggs with one of the honey-guide from Mokeetsi, Transvaal, December 

 6, 1922, another from Umzumbi, Natal, February 2, 1922, with the 

 same number of eggs, and a set of two eggs with one of the honey-guide 

 reported by Haagner and Ivy (1907b, p. 103, pi. 4). Other records 

 are a set of four eggs of the barbet and one of the honey-guide collected 

 by A. D. Millar at Palmiet, December 17, 1899 (Chubb, 1914, p. 63); 

 a nest with a single honey-guide chick found the same place and date 

 (Stark and Sclater, 1903, p. 154) ; a set of one egg each of the host and 

 the parasite, Kronitz Kloof, Natal, December 4, 1903 (Sparrow, 1936, 

 p. 5); one set from Petermaritzburg, Natal, late October, with two 

 eggs of the barbet and one of the honey-guide, and another set from 

 the same area in November with 4 eggs of the barbet and one of the 

 parasite (Robin Guy, in htt.). Recently Plowes informed me that 

 at the Matopos Research Station, about 20 miles from Bulawayo, 

 Southern Rhodesia, on October 30 he found an egg of Indicator minor 

 in a nest of a black-collared barbet containing four eggs of the barbet 

 (this set is now in the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia), and 

 on November 30 he found another parasitized nest of the same barbet. 



Priest (1948, p. 64) lists five parasitized nests, apparently the same 

 as those listed by Roberts. In addition to these, another may be 

 noted — an egg of the lesser honey-guide taken from a nest of this 



