252 BULLETIN 208, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



One record, unfortunately merely a bare statement without further 

 details. 



Rudolf Braun (in litt. to J. P. Chapin) reports that this warbler is 

 a host of Prodotiscus insignis in northwestern Angola. 



Zosterops virens kikuyuensis Sharpe. Kikuyu green white-eye. 



Zosterops kikuyuensis Sharpe, Ibis, ser. 6, vol. 3, p. 444, 1891. (Kikuyu, 

 Kenya Colony.) 



Van Someren informs me that at Ngong, Kenya Colony, in June 

 (1949?) he found a nest of this race of the green white-eye containing 

 two young Prodotiscus insignis ellenhecki. In May 1953, in the same 

 place, he found another nest containing one young slender-billed 

 honey-guide. 



Zosterops virens jacksoni Neumann. Mau green wbite-eye. 



Zosterops jacksoni Neumann, Ornith. Monatsb., vol. 7, p. 23, 1899. (Mau.) 



A nest at Mau, western Kenya Colony, containing a young Ellen- 

 beck's slender-billed honey-guide was found in May by van Someren, 

 to whom I am indebted for this information. 



One other record, unfortunately not identified to host except that it 

 was a form of Zosterops, reported to me by J. G. Williams is as follows: 

 A young fledgling Ellenbeck's slender-billed honey-guide, collected by 

 a school boy at Limuru, Kenya Colony, December 31, was being fed 

 by a pair of unidentified white-eyes, according to the collector. 



Questionable Host Records 



In addition to these few records it may be noted that Benson (1951, 

 p. 91) found a nest of Campethera bennettii bennettii (Smith) at 

 Mzimba, Nyasaland, containing one very small white egg measuring 

 18.4 by 15.3 mm. (considerably smaller than an unquestionable, 

 oviduct egg of the woodpecker). Benson suggests it may be a 

 honey-guide's egg, and that of all the possible species, Prodotiscus 

 insignis is the most likely and is one that was actually seen in that 

 locality. Such an indefinite observation hardly merits further dis- 

 cussion. More recently Benson (1952b, p. 151) has withdrawn his 

 earlier suggestion and assumes that either Indicator minor or I. exilis 

 meliphilus may have been involved! 



Still more recently Benson (1953, p. 45) lists the southern double- 

 collared sunbird, Cinnyris chahjbeus, as a possible host in Nyasaland. 

 However, this is based solely on the fact that he saw a sharp-billed 

 honey-guide chased twice by a male sunbird near a nest of the latter. 



Food and Feeding Habits 



The two species of Prodotiscus not only do not guide to bees' nests, 

 but, unlike the species of Indicator, do not eat beeswax regularly or 



