226 BULLETIN 2 08, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



COUBTSHIP AND MaTING 



There are no published data. If one may judge by what is known of 

 the better known species of Indicator, the least honey-guide probably 

 is not much given to courtship displays. However, E. L. Button 

 of Lundazi, Northern Rhodesia, writes me that he has seen what 

 seems to be courtship behavior, "The courtship of the least honey- 

 guide resembles that of the blue flycatcher {Erannornis albicauda) 

 to a great extent. The male bird fans his tail and flits about in the 

 vicinity of the female uttering a very soft twittering sound." 



Eggs amd Egg Laying 



Almost nothing is known; the following being the only pertinent 

 observations. At lyonda, near Coquilhatville, Belgian Congo, on 

 June 7, 1953, Father G. Michielsen took a fully shelled egg from the 

 oviduct of a least honey-guide. It measured 18 by 13 mm., and was 

 pure, unmarked white in color. In Spanish Guinea, early in Septem- 

 ber 1951, G. Sabater found a least honey-guide in a trap baited with 

 honeycomb, and also found an egg beneath the trap. He sent the 

 bird and the egg to J. P. Chapin, who has kindly written me the 

 following details. The egg, pure white and rather smooth, was 

 fresh, but it was broken by the weight of the birds sent in the same 

 package and was stuck to the paper. Before attempting to remove it 

 from the paper Chapin measured it with calipers and found it to be 

 approximately 17 by 13.5 mm. When he tried to soak the paper in 

 water and free the broken egg, everything went to pieces. He felt, 

 however, that he had the dimensions correct to within about half a 

 millimeter. 



There is, unfortunately, an element of uncertainty about this egg. 

 Sabater trapped examples of Indicator maculatus and /. minor coniros- 

 tris as well as I. exilis, and, in fact, the package he sent to Chapin 

 containing the egg also contained injected specimens of all three 

 species. All he gave as evidence concerning the egg was that he 

 found it beneath the trap but did not say explicitly that it was found 

 when a least honey-guide was in the trap. That it does refer to this 

 species is highly probable. Chapin, who examined it when it was 

 still more or less intact, felt it could only be an egg oi I. e. exilis. 



Hosts or Victims 



As far as I have been able to learn, only two nestling least honey- 

 guides have ever been found in nests of their fosterers, and no eggs 

 attributable mth any definiteness to this species have yet been found 

 in any nests. Of the two instances of parasitized nests, one only is 

 identified to species. Van Someren ( in litt.) informs me that he once 



