THE HONEY-GUIDES 227 



collected a juvenal least honey-guide from a nest of a Kenya golden- 

 rumped tinker-bird {Pogoniulus billineatus jacksoni (Reichenow)) 

 on Mount Elgon in July. This constitutes the only definite host 

 record. The other honey-guide chick was in an unidentified barbet's 

 nest. In the Cameroons, Bates (1930, p. 267) writes that "for its propa- 

 gation it seems to depend on the small Barbets, in a hole of one of 

 which was found a young Little Male, its stomach very full of Bar- 

 bet's food." 



Chapin informs me (in litt.) that at lyonda, near Coquilhatville, 

 Belgian Congo, on June 7, 1953, Father G. Michielsen shot a female 

 least honey-guide close to a nest of Pogoniulus subsuLphureus,^° where 

 the little barbet was on guard. The honey-guide had an egg in its 

 oviduct. 



For further possible but wholly indefinite records see the accounts 

 of the barbets of the genus Pogionulus discussed among the hosts of 

 Indicator minor. 



Food and Feeding Habits 



Adult: A specimen (meliphilus) collected in Kenya Colony by 

 Williams had beeswax and tiny black insect remains in its gizzard. 

 Two specimens from the Belgian Congo (typical exilis) contained 

 beeswax, insect remains, and a seed (Chapin, 1939, p. 540). A speci- 

 men collected in Spanish Guinea by Sabater had remains of three spe- 

 cies of ants, one elaterid beetle, one nitidulid larva, one fly, one feather, 

 and some beeswax in its gizzard. In southeastern Nigeria, Marchant 

 (1953, p. 51) found small black hymenopterous insects in the gizzard 

 of a least honey -guide (subspecies exilis). 



In order to test the presence of wax in his birds, Chapin placed some 

 of the stomach contents on a knife blade and heated it, whereupon it 

 melted, and solidified again when allowed to cool. In the Cameroons, 

 Bates concluded that the species must depend in part on certain tiny 

 hymenoptera other than bees, but he also found honey in their gizzards. 

 Serle (1950b, p. 366) reported insects in the stomach of a bird shot at 

 Kumba, Cameroons. In the Gold Coast, Alexander (1902, p. 364) fre- 

 quently observed the least honey-guide (subspecies willcocksi) "when- 

 ever a swarm of flying ants appeared. It would dart upon them and 

 then retire to its original perch to devour its prey." In Tanganyika 

 Territory, Moreau (Sclater and Moreau, 1932, p. 665) noted fragments 

 of small beetles in the gizzard of one of these birds (race meliphilus). 



Chapin writes that it is not known how this species "procures its 

 honey-comb; but since it asks no aid of man, I suspect it of having 

 some other mammalian ally." 



8° This would refer to the subspecies flavimentum (Verreaux). Barbatula 

 Jlavimentum Verreaux, Rev. et Mag. Zool., ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 262, 1851 (Gaboon). 



