206 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



might give a more accurate picture of the newly hatched lesser honey- 

 guide, 



2nd day: The bird's bill was still so soft and pliable as to give the 

 nestling the appearance of having not so much a definite beak, as 

 in the young of most other birds, but rather a "snout." The illustra- 

 tions of the 3-day-old bird (pi. 5) show the condition of the bill 

 very well. The premaxilla and the mandible are terminated by 

 sharp, narrow hooks of the same color as the rest of the "snout." 

 The upper hook is much longer than the mandibular one, curved, 

 but not reflexed. The mandibular hook is refiexed or bent backward 

 as well as being curved. When the bill is closed these hooks come 

 to lie side by side, not one in front of the other. The distal one-third 

 of the maxilla has a marked tomial curve away from the plane of 

 meeting with the mandible, causing the mouth to remain open termi- 

 nally when the proximal two-thirds of the jaws meet in closing. The 

 nestling has a very prominent callosity studded with scalelike tubercles 

 on the heel of its foot. The skin aU over is whitish to pale cream, 

 and is entirely bare of feathers; the eyes are closed and do not form 

 a raised rotundity on the surface of the head ; the nostrils are circular 

 with a thickened, slightly raised rim. The bird's back is flat, but 

 not hollow; the abdomen is very large and bulging. By contrast, 

 the young barbet chick that hatched when the honey-guide was two 

 days old was much smaller, with a light wine-colored skin, with no 

 protruding abdomen, similarly devoid of feathers, and with a similarly 

 prominent heel pad. 



In order to observe them better, Kanger took the two nestlings 

 out of the nest into his cupped hands. There the young honey-guide 

 began to bite the barbet chick savagely in great grasping bites, the 

 jaws widely opened in its attacks. This drew blood and caused the 

 barbet to squeak and attempt to crawl away. Ranger's lingers 

 were treated in the same way, gaping jaws closing upon the skin 

 with appreciable force. He tested the power of the bite on more 

 tender areas and found that his tongue was punctured by the max- 

 illary hook. Ranger writes that the honey-guide's attack on the 

 barbet was a quite ferocious, relentless gripping and biting. Blood 

 specks covered the barbet nestling which showed signs of weakening. 

 The young parasite also attacked the eggs in the nest but was not 

 able to puncture them. 



3rd day: When the nest was visited at 10:10 a. m. the adult barbet 

 was brooding the two chicks. The young barbet was weak, with the 

 bite marks (having coagulated blood under the skin) prominent on 

 its back and abdomen. The nestling honey-guide was not engaged 

 in biting at the time, but when Ranger replaced the two in the nest 

 after examining them it again attacked the young barbet. 



