200 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



barbet at Wedza, November 11, 1930, by Captain Priest and now in 

 the collection of the Victoria Memorial Museum at Salisbury. 



Skead (1951, pp. 53-55) found the lesser honey-guide to parasitize 

 this barbet at "Gameston," 15 miles southwest of Grahamstown, 

 Albany district. Cape Province. The nest contained three eggs of 

 the host and one of the parasite, and when first found on September 

 29 it contained only the first barbet egg. On October 17, three of 

 the eggs hatched; the last one hatched the next morning. On October 

 25 the nest contained only a single chick, the young honey-guide. In 

 other words, between October 17 and 25 the three young barbets 

 disappeared. Inasmuch as one or the other of the barbets was 

 always in the nest it was impossible to see just what happened and 

 when. Further details of the development of the young honey-guide 

 are described from this case and another from Umtaleni, near Kei 

 Road, in our discussion of the nestling stage of the parasite. 



To the above data may be added that B. M. Newby-Varty found the 

 black-collared barbet to be victimized by the lesser honey-guide on at 

 least three occasions near Marandellas, Southern Rhodesia. The 

 records are as follows: one nest with three eggs of the barbet and one 

 of the parasite, all eggs fresh, October 20, 1946; another also with three 

 eggs of the host and one of the honey-guide, slightly incubated, late 

 October, 1946; and one with a three-fourths grown young lesser 

 honey-guide as its sole occupant, early in November. 



From Nyasaland, where the birds approach the subspecies zombae 

 (SheUey),^^ we have the following data. Benson (1952a, p. 445) 

 collected a set of three eggs of this barbet with one of the lesser honey- 

 guide at Mkhoma, Nyasaland, October 22, 1950; all the eggs were stiU 

 fresh. As mentioned earlier, the same observer (1940, pp. 429-430) 

 saw a lesser honey-guide enter a black-collared barbet's nesting hole 

 after many unsuccessful earlier attempts, but he was unable to examine 

 the nest to see if the parasite actually laid an egg in it. However, the 

 apparent importance of this host in the economy of the honey-guide 

 is hinted at by Benson in a later paper (1942, p. 300) when he tries 

 to account for the absence of the latter bird in western Nyasaland by 

 the local absence of the barbet. 



A nest with two eggs of the barbet and one of the lesser honey- 

 guide, near Lake Mweru, October 13, is reported by A. W. Vincent 

 (1946, pp. 321-322). The record refers to the subspecies congicus 

 (Reichenow).^° 



*8 Melanobucco zombae Shelley, Ibis, ser. 6, vol. 5, 1893, p. 10. (Zomba, 

 Nyasaland.) 



*" Melanobucco torquatus congicus Reichenow, in Werther, Die mittleren Hoch- 

 lander des nordlichen Deutsch-Ost-Afrika . . . , p. 273, 1898. (Congo region; 

 type from Malanje, Angola.) 



