July is, 1911] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
97 
The Honey Bird. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
From Cape L’Agulhas, the most southerly point 
of South Africa, to the Zambesi River, and from 
east to west of that portion of Southern Africa, 
is to be found a small gray-colored bird known 
to the Dutch hunters as hoenig vogel, or honey 
bird. 
A hunter or traveler at times will be aston¬ 
ished by the antics of this intelligent little bird 
which alights on the twig of a tree, making a 
big noise in chirpings, incessant and shrill. As 
one moves toward the noisy little creature it 
makes a slow flight to a nearby tree and con¬ 
tinues its chirping; follow it again and the same 
performance is gone through. 
Return to camp and the bird will follow you, 
always making the same noise to attract your 
attention, and will patiently stay—often one hour 
and a half—trying to get you to follow it. 
On one occasion at the Umzinguani River, 
Mashonaland, South Africa, I noticed a honey 
bird calling us, and when I told about the little 
fellow to some Australians who were among 
our convoy of wagons and carts, I was heartily 
laughed at. Being quite sure of my bird I told 
the doubters to bring their rifles in case of 
game, and had one of our natives bring an axe 
and a bucket. There is a great deal of Mis¬ 
souri in an Australian—he has to be shown— 
and although the bird flew ahead of us, at times 
coming quite close with its chippy chip, chippy 
chip, cheep, cheep, cheep, I was laughed at and 
chaffed a good deal about such an old woman’s 
story that the bird would intelligently conduct 
us to a bee’s nest. 
Suddenly we stopped, for the bird’s antics 
had changed and instead of flying ahead, it was 
now going from tree to tree in a close circle, 
so I called a halt and watched our little feath¬ 
ered guide. It stopped calling and made a swift 
dive downward to a pile of rocks and then back 
again to the tree. Going closer to the rocks 
we could see nothing, although we were only 
some fifteen feet away from where the bird had 
pointed. With a shrill call the little fellow, evi¬ 
dently annoyed at our blindness, flew down 
against a fissure between two rocks and away 
again like a gray-brown streak. We then saw 
that part of the thin fissure had been sea’ed up 
with black wax or bees pitch and in the center 
were two or three small holes with bees peering 
out at us, waiting for the first move. Wild bees 
returning to their hive and seeing men about 
will not alight, but continue on their course in 
order to try to deceive the intruders, but when 
they know the nest is discovered, they will enter, 
deposit their load, and swarm around the en¬ 
trance to protect it. 
A swift examination showed us this nest cou'd 
not be robbed without shooting the rocks away 
with dynamite, so moving away a little distance 
we sat down to rest before returning to camp. 
The honey bird came shrieking at us in evident 
excitement, darting away in a new direction and 
flying back to us. We decided to try again, so 
followed the little fellow, and had gone about 
500 yards when it went through its circle move¬ 
ments again, this time indicating the lower por¬ 
tion of a huge old tree, then settled on a branch 
about thirty yards away and silently waited. We 
at once saw the entrance to this nest, although 
at first the bees kept quiet, and taking stock of 
the tree, decided we could handle the proposition, 
so at once started a fire and tore out pieces of 
our coat linings to make smudges and smoke the 
bees out. When we thought sufficient smoking 
had been done, one of the boys took the axe and 
began to enlarge the entrance. Our little guide 
watched these operations in expectant silence 
from its nearby perch. 
After we had filled our bucket with good rich 
honey, we took two or three pieces of comb 
which contained young white bees and placed 
them on a large limb of a tree some fifty yards 
away. Looking round as we started for the 
wagons we saw the honey bird with another, 
evidently its better half, already feasting on the 
young bees, their share of the spoils which one 
at any rate had worked for. 
We had not gone half a mile when another 
honey bird solicited our assistance, and after 
vain attempts to entice us out of our path, ap¬ 
parently recollected that it knew of a good thing 
on our route, so flying in the direction we were 
going, kept up its call for about a mile when 
it too stopped and circled around, showing us 
another bees’ nest. As it looked good to us we 
got ready again, this time cutting square pieces 
of bark from the sweet thorn tree and bruising 
the edges so that when turned up they formed 
little trays to hold the honey. We filled three 
of these trays, about six pounds of honey, and 
left our tribute for our bird guide on a neigh¬ 
boring rock As before, two birds were there 
to join in the feast, although at no time during 
our walk did we see the mate to our guide until 
the feast was ready. Evidently the female fol¬ 
lows the calls of her mate at a distance. 
Someone once asked me how the honey birds 
had first secured a taste of the young bees, not 
being able to get them without assistance. I 
suppose, as most wild creatures are inquisitive, 
probably some of these little birds had watched 
a honey hunter and later examined the dis¬ 
carded bits of comb containing a few young 
bees, not numerous enough to appeal to the hun¬ 
ter. The natives themselves are very fond of 
young bees and relish them as much as they 
do the honey. 
Many superstitions are afloat among the natives 
regarding the honey bird, and the little fellow is 
often unjustly accused, as illustrated by the fol¬ 
lowing story. An old native hunter told me 
that a honey bird was in the habit of coming 
to the kraal every few days and would lead no 
one but himself out to bees’ nests. 
One day, through the guidance of the bird, 
the old man robbed a very fat nest, but there 
were no combs containing young bees, conse¬ 
quently the bird had to go without its share of 
the plunder. For some time he saw nothing of 
the bird, until one morning it returned, calling 
as usual for the man to follow. The old hunter 
had a friend staying with him from a neigh¬ 
boring kraal or village and asked the caller to 
accompany him. They followed the bird for 
about two miles and came upon an enormous 
python, which they killed and skinned, return¬ 
ing to the kraal with the flesh and hide of the 
snake, and paying no more attention to the bird. 
J’he next day it came again and seemed very 
excited, flying quickly and in long flights. The 
two men followed for some three miles, when 
from under some fan palms a large male lion 
jumped up, growled, and made off before the 
hunters had time for a sure shot. The old man 
firmly believed that the little bird had led him 
on to the snake and the lion, hoping to be re¬ 
venged on him for not feeding it on their last 
bee-nesting trip. 
I asked the old hunter if he did not think his 
encounters with the snake and lion were merely 
due to coincidence, for in a country where many 
wild beasts live it is not such a marvelous thing 
to come upon some kind of beast during a walk. 
This idea the old fellow indignantly scouted, 
claiming the bird was revengeful and wicked. 
I too have often had to disappoint my little 
guide because there were no young bees in the 
nest, but have never come across anything dan¬ 
gerous while following the honey bird. This 
I know, that the honey bird will not take one 
to the same bees’ nest the second time if on the 
first occasion the person had refused to operate. 
I should have mentioned earlier that it is cus¬ 
tomary while following the bird to encourage 
him by occasionally whistling, as one whistles 
to a dog. In some localities the honey hunters 
call to the bird and even talk to him. 
While prospecting in Mazoe District, Rhodesia, 
South Africa, I have frequently bought earthen 
jars from the natives for a teaspoonful of salt 
apiece, and by following honey birds now and 
again and storing the honey in the kettles, I 
have had as much as eighty pounds of pure 
honey in camp at one time, which in a few 
months becomes firm and crystallized and is a 
wholesome food. A. D. 
Birds in Algonquin Park. 
Washington, D. C., July 5. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: I spent the first three weeks of 
June as usual in Algonquin Park and obtained 
a record of the woodthrush at north of park on 
46 degrees latitude line. I found the phoebe 
nesting at several points. Also noted twice the 
very musical but seldom recorded song of the 
brown creeper of five notes (Brewster gives 
four) We also found his nest once under hem¬ 
lock bark. No sign of capercailzie. We ob¬ 
served the pileated twice, the arctic three-toed 
woodpecker once. Both are common apparently 
from reports, and from our own experience. 
John M. Cooper. 
Found in a Crow’s Nest. 
Somewhere in the United States there is a 
woman who lost a fine jeweled watch two years 
ago. The watch has been found. Some boys 
were robbing a crow’s nest near the famous 
Indian Henry’s hunting ground, close to Mount 
Rainier National Park, in Washington, and in 
the nest was the watch. On the inside of the 
cover are the initials of some person reading 
as follows: “Mae St. L., ’09.” The watch is 
now in the Mayor’s office awaiting a claimant.— 
Cleveland Leader. 
