216 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



fighting with a woodpecker. He once saw two lesser honey-guides 

 harassing a fiscal shrike (Lanius coUaris), giving it a rough time and 

 causing it to fly off screeching in apparent terror. In Tanganyika 

 Territory, Whybrow (in litt.) found that the lesser honey-guide would 

 come to a birdbath in his garden but would neither drink nor bathe ; 

 it would merely drive off other birds. 



As far as I know, no one has seen a lesser honey-guide eating birds' 

 eggs, a feeding habit known to occur in some parasitic birds. 



The almost invariable presence of beeswax in the stomachs of these 

 birds is in agreement with what is known of other species of Indicator, 

 but inasmuch as 7. minor does not guide it must be able to get the wax 

 by itself. Ranger has seen lesser, greater, and scaly-throated honey- 

 guides entering and feeding on wild bees' nests in the eastern Cape 

 Province. Skead's description, quoted above, also reveals that ex- 

 posed wax is available to these birds. 



The food of the nestling lesser honey-guide is discussed in our ac- 

 count of the nest life and development of the young, and need not be 

 repeated here. 



Guiding 



There is much uncertainty and difference of opinion in the literature 

 as to whether Indicator minor guides to bees' nests as do its larger 

 congeners, 7. indicator and 7. variegatus. The overwhelming majority 

 of experienced observers agree that the lesser honey-guide does not 

 guide, or, at least, have never found any evidence of its doing so. 

 Among these, the names of the following come to mind (and the list 

 could be extended) : Bates, Belcher, Benson, Chapin, Emin, Fried- 

 mann, Heuglin, Jackson, Lynes, Moreau, Pitman, Plowes, Potter, 

 Ranger, Riippell, Serle, Skead, van Someren, Vincent, and Williams. 

 Some of them go so far as to say that the records in the literature of 

 guiding by the lesser honey-guide are all based on misidentifications 

 and that the observations really refer to Indicator indicator. That 

 this conclusion is justified seems clear in the instances described by 

 the Woodwards (1899, p. 222), Kirk (1864, pp. 327-328), Lovat 

 (quoted by Ogilvie-Grant, 1900, p. 306), Marshall (1900, p. 251), and 

 W. W. Roberts (1925, p. 43), and these "cases" may be dismissed 

 from consideration. 



On the other hand, there are a smaller number of observers who have 

 placed on record observations that cannot be so easily dismissed, and 

 they deserve our consideration. 



Swynnerton, who knew his birds well, and who published notes on 

 7. indicator (even dividing it, as was then current practice, into 7. 

 major and 7. sparrmani) and 7. variegatus, as well as 7. minor, wrote 

 (1908, p. 412) from Gazaland, eastern Southern Rhodesia that "as it 



