HONEY-GUIDE. 



135 



search of its prey indicates to man its object, and 

 thus induces him to follow it ; but that it is false 

 that the bird seeks to draw man after it for the 

 purpose of sharing the plunder of the honey with 

 him : the fact is, the bird calls not the man, but 

 the man knows that by attending to the cry and fol- 

 lowing the bird he will be sure to find the stores 

 of the bees. Bruce pretends to have seen one of 

 these birds in Abyssinia, and he has given to it all 

 the forms of a Cuckow; but Le Vaillant no more 

 believes that the Indicator was seen there, than 

 the Giraffe, to which Bruce has given the horns of 

 the Antelope ! however, Bruce himself does not 

 admit the truth of Sparrman's account, for in his 

 travels he says, " I cannot conceive it possible 

 that in a country w T here there are so many thou- 

 sand hives, there was any use for giving to a bird 

 a peculiar instinct or faculty of discovering honey, 

 when, at the same time, nature hath deprived him 

 of the power of availing himself of any advan- 

 tage from the discovery; for man seems in this 

 case to be made for the service of the Moroc, 

 which is very different to the common course of 

 things : man certainly needs not this bird ; for on 

 every tree, and on every hillock he may see plenty 

 of honey at his own deliberate disposal. I can- 

 not then but think, with all submission to those 

 natural philosophers (Dr. Sparrman and Jerome 

 Lobo, who have also given an account of this bird,) 

 that the whole of this is an improbable fiction; 

 nor did I ever hear a single person in Abyssinia 

 suggest, that either this or any other bird had such 



