210 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



feed the nestling. When it was finished it would remain nearby 

 until the other barbet returned with more food. 



This was the first day Ranger saw the young honey-guide at the nest 

 entrance. There were two or three previous occasions when it was 

 heard to shuffle back down the nest cavity, but not from so far up, 

 the top of the cavity apparently being as yet out of reach of the 

 nestling. Skead likewise found that a nestling lesser honey-guide 

 35 days old took the food from its foster parents at the entrance to 

 the nest cavity. It made a rolling caU when the latter approached 

 with food, and continued this for half a minute after feeding. 



Ranger removed the nestling for examination. Its abdomen was 

 still bare; the tail feathers had reached within three-eighths of an 

 inch of their full growth; the bare skin around the eye and the thicken- 

 ings at the gape were cream color; the bill was darker than 10 days 

 earlier but not yet as dark as in the adult. 



37th day: The young honey-guide apparently left the nest in the 

 morning, and the two barbets continued the usual order of successively 

 feeding it as it perched fairly near the nest site. However, Ranger 

 did not actually see the young fledgling. He came to the nest at 

 10:09 a. m. and saw one barbet near it. The mate arrived in 

 8 minutes with two yellow Aberia fruits in its biU. The fii'st barbet 

 then departed, and the other one went closer toward the nest; the 

 barbets maintained their pattern of one keeping guard after delivering 

 its food and waiting for the other to return before going off itself, 

 but they were going not to the nest but to a point near and above it 

 that unfortunately was hidden from where Ranger was secreted. 

 He heard the subdued caUing of the young honey-guide at least 

 twice, however. On coming closer he failed to find it, and the 

 barbet "on guard" flew off. The nest was empty, and the barbets 

 and the honey-guide did not return to the nesting site again. 



In corroboration of Ranger's note, Skead's honey-guide emerged 

 on the 38th day. On that day he looked in the nest in the evening and 

 found the two adult barbets but not the young fledgling (which was 

 there the night before). The foUowing day Skead saw the barbets 

 in the bushveld, 300 yards from the nest. Both made the anxious 

 snaaar caU which they use to denote apprehension when they have 

 young ones. He could not find the young honey-guide, but from the 

 barbets' behavior he had little doubt that it was somewhere nearby. 



Skead goes on to say: 



But, as mentioned, the honey-guide did not return to the nest-hole that night 

 as the barbets' own chicks would have done and the next morning I saw the 

 barbets emerge from their hole and fly away in the opposite direction from where 

 I had seen them with their honey-guide the afternoon before. Never again 

 did I see the chick, and the subsequent activities of the barbets gave no hint 

 of their continued interest therein. From this it must be inferred that either 



