THE HONEY-GUIDES 243 



Rougeot (1950, pp. 62-63) suggests that the lyre-tail may live for 

 part of the year in pairs, but this appears to be an assumption based 

 on the thought that the two sexes may be able to communicate their 

 whereabouts to each other by means of their noise-making proclivities. 

 This cannot be accepted as factual. 



Nestling Stage 



As stated above we have no real evidence other than from analogy 

 that the Ijre-tail is parasitic, but, as Chapin and Rougeot state, there 

 is little doubt that it lays its eggs in the nest holes of brown barbets 

 of the genus Gymnohucco. However, all that is known is that at 

 Medje, Ituri district, Belgian Congo, in April, a native hunter brought 

 to Dr. Christy a nestling Alelichneutes, with no evidence of what nest 

 it came from. Chapin (1939, pp. 553-556) has examined this speci- 

 men and reports that it has a small white egg-tooth at the tip of the 

 maxilla but shows no sign of there having been a hook on it and, simi- 

 larly, no sign of any mandibular egg-tooth; the heel pad is well de- 

 veloped with pointed conical scales, as in young barbets and young 

 indicators. The growing inner primaries show no sign of the reduction 

 so frequent in young woodpeckers. The plumage stage of this bird 

 would make it likely that it was too old to have retained the bill hooks 

 even if it had had any originally. 



Food and Feeding Habits 



The adult male collected by Chapin had its gizzard filled with 

 beeswax and small bits of insects, indicating a diet similar to that of 

 the species of the genus Indicator. Bates found flakes of wax in the 

 stomach of his specimen. Rougeot reports the stomach contents of 

 his first specimen to consist of small granules of white, very hard wax 

 together with unidentifiable remains of insects and fragments of the 

 shell of an egg, the presence of which leads to the question as to 

 whether the lyre-tail may supplement its diet by robbing the nests 

 of small birds. In this connection it may be recalled that Skead 

 (1951, p. 61), in the Cape Province, found ladicator indicator to do 

 this on at least one occasion. A female from Ibembo, Belgian Congo, 

 the body of which was kindly sent me for study by Dr. Schouteden, 

 contained two species of ants, one spider, and some beeswax in its 

 gizzard. 



Description 



This bird, sole member of the genus, resembles Indicator in its bill, 

 which is slightly stouter in Melichneutes, and in its general form except 

 for the tail, as mentioned in the description of the genus (p. 236). 



