THE HONEY-GUIDES 251 



to be able to say which sounds are produced only by males or only by 

 females or what their various functions may be. For the present all 

 that can be done is to assemble the few available data. 



In Kenya Colony, Williams writes me that he has usually found 

 this bird to be a silent creature, but occasionally had heard it give a 

 short, low chattering note. Vincent records a subdued squeaky 

 chatter from this bird in Mozambique; Marchant once heard a weak 

 whi-hihi from one in Nigeria. 



As mentioned in the discussion of courtship behavior, the Bensons 

 heard a bird in flight give a very harsh two-syllabled call skeee-aaa 

 repeated a number of times at short intervals as it flew. 



Eggs and Egg Laying 



Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1952, p. 748) describe an oviduct 

 egg of the southern race Prodotiscus insignis zambesiae as white and 

 about 15 by 12 mm. The circumstances attending this observation 

 appear to be unpublished and are unknown to me. 



Hosts or Victims 



This little honey-guide is very different from the species of the 

 genus Indicator in its known selection of foster parents for its offspring. 

 Whereas all of the latter parasitize hole-nesting birds almost exclu- 

 sively, the present one deposits its eggs in the small, open, cuplike 

 nests of white-eyes, flycatchers, and warblers. There are no published 

 data on the victims of Prodotiscus insignis other than an unsupported 

 statement by Roberts (1940, p. 182) to the effect that the southern 

 race zambesiae is "presumed to be parasitic" on Petronia superciliaris 

 and one by Mackworth-Praed and Grant (1952, p. 748) that the same 

 race is parasitic on white-eyes, rock sparrows, and tinkerbirds. I 

 do not know of the evidence behind the parts of these statements 

 having to do with rock sparrows and tinkerbirds. The few observa- 

 tions given below are, obviously, only a beginning of what is still to 

 be discovered about the hosts of this bird. 



Platysteira peltata peltata Sundevall. Black-throated wattle-eye. 



Platysteira peltata Sundevall, Of. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Forh. Stockholm, vol. 

 7, p. 105, 1850. ("Caffraria inferiore"; type from Umlalaas [i. e., Umlezi] 

 River, near Durban.) 



One record kindly sent me by Dr. van Someren, who found a nest 

 of this flycatcher at Ngong, Kenya Colony, in July, containing a 

 young Prodotiscus insignis ellenbecki as its sole occupant. 



Apcdis rufogularis angolensis (Bannerman). Angola red-throated forest-warbler. 

 Euprinoides rufigularis angolensis Bannerman, Bull. Brit. Ornith. Club, vol. 43, 

 p. 30, 1922. (N'dalla Tando.) 



