692 
Letters, Extracts , Notices , fyc. 
which was not far distant, I found the boys engaged in 
chopping out a bee's-nest, to which they told me the Honey- 
bird had led them. I observed them leave a small portion 
of the comb on a branch near the nest, for the use, as they 
said, of the “ Honey-bird/'’ but I did not, on this occasion 
actually see the bird myself. 
On another occasion, just after I had shot a hysena and 
while we were engaged in skinning it, my boys told me they 
could hear the Honey-bird calling to them. I went with 
them into the bush, and saw a little brown bird flying from 
tree to tree, and heard it uttering a kind of twittering note. 
After following the bird a distance of some three or four 
hundred yards through the bush, my boys discovered the 
bees’-nest in the trunk of a tree, not far from the ground, 
and immediately proceeded to cut out the honey. 
The belief in this curious instinct in the Honey-bird is so 
universally prevalent among the natives of Eastern Africa, 
and instances of success in obtaining honey in this way have 
been given by so many travellers, that I cannot believe there 
is room for any doubt on the subject. I may remind you 
that, among other well-known travellers, Mr. John G. Millais 
(see his f Breath from the Veldt/ pp. 185-187) has recorded 
his personal experience of it, and has given a sketch of the 
bird guiding its human allies in search of honey. 
Yours &c., 
W. T. Barneby. 
July 24th, 1900. 
Sirs, —It may, I think, interest the readers of ( The Ibis ’ 
to hear that, during our recent expedition to the Upper Nile, 
we had several opportunities of observing that remarkable 
bird, the Shoe-bill (Balaeniceps rex). When in company 
with Major Peake, R.A., in the Egyptian gunboat ‘Me- 
temmeh/ in January of this year, I first saw specimens of 
this bird on the Bahr-Ghazal, near the mouth of the B ah i’¬ 
ll or ur, in about lat. 9° N., where I shot one with a rifle. 
It was standing in a marsh alongside the river, some 20 
yards from the bank. Later on in this year, about the end 
of April, I again observed the Shoe-bill on the Bahr-Jebel 
and Upper Nile, as far south as Bor. 
