HONEY (Chin., me·, Sansk., madhu, mead, honey,— cf. A. S., medo, medu, mead; Greek, μέλι, in which θ or δ is changed into λ; Lat., mel∙, Yr., miel·, A. S., hunig; Germ., Honig), a sweet viscid liquid, obtained by bees chiefly from the nectaries of flowers, i.e., those parts of flowers specially constructed for the elaboration of honey (see Botany, vol. iv. p. 134), and after transportation to the hive in the proventriculus or crop of the insects, discharged by them into the cells prepared for its reception. Whether the nectar undergoes any alteration within the crop of the bee is a point on which authors have differed. Some wasps, e.g., Myrapetra scutellaris ’ i and the genus Hectarina, collect honey. A honey-like fluid, which consists of a nearly pure solution of uncrystallizable sugar having the formula C 6 H 14 O 7 after drying in vacuo, and which is used by the Mexicans in the preparation of a beverage, is yielded by certain inactive individuals of Myrmecocystus mexicaηus, Wesmael, the honey-ants or pouched ants {hormigas mieleras or mochi-leras) of Mexico. The abdomen in these insects, owing to the distensibility of the membrane connecting its segments, becomes converted into a globular thin-walled sac by the accumulation within it of the nectar supplied to them by their working comrades (Wesmael, Bull, de VAcad. Roy. de Brux., V. 766, 1838). By the Rev. H. C. M i Cook, who discovered the insect in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado, the honey-bearers were found hanging by their feet, in groups of about thirty, to the roofs of special chambers in their underground nests, their large globular abdomens causing them to resemble “bunches of small Delaware grapes” {Proc. Acad. Hat. Sci. Ρhilad., 1879, p. 197). A bladder-like formation on the ...metathorax of another ant, Crematogaster inflatus (F. Smith, Cat. of Hymeηoptera, pt. vi. pp. 136 and 200, pl. ix. fig. 1), which has a small circular orifice at each posterior lateral angle, appears to possess a function similar to that of the abdomen in the honey-ant.
It is a popular saying that where is the best honey there also is the best wool; and a pastoral district, since it affords a greater profusion of flowers, is superior for the production of honey to one under tillage. Dry warm weather is that most favourable to the secretion of nectar by flowers. This they protect from rain by various internal structures, such as papillae, cushions of hairs, and spurs, or by virtue of their position (in the raspberry, drooping), or the arrangement of their constituent parts. Dr A. W. Bennett {How Flowers are Fertilized, p. 31, 1873) has remarked that the perfume of flowers is generally derived from their nectar; the blossoms of some plants, however, as ivy and holly, though almost scentless, are highly nectariferous. The exudation of a honeylike or saccharine fluid, as has frequently been attested, is not a function exclusively of the flowers in all plants. A sweet material, the manna of pharmacy, e.g., is produced by the leaves and stems of a species of ash, Fraxinus Ornus ; and honey-secreting glands are to be met with on the leaves, petioles, phyllodes, stipules (as in Vicia sativa), or bracteae (as in the Marcgraviaceoe) of a considerable number of different vegetable forms. The origin of the honey-yielding properties manifested specially by flowers among the several parts of plants has been carefully considered by Darwin, who regards the saccharine matter in nectar as a waste product of chemical changes in the sap, which, when it happened to be excreted within the envelopes of flowers, was utilized for the important object of cross-fertilization, and sub sequently was much increased in quantity, and stored in various ways (see Cross and Self Fertilization of Plants, p, 402 sq., 1876). It has been noted with respect to the nectar of the fuchsia that it is most abundant when the anthers are about to dehisce, and absent in the unexpanded flower.
Pettigrew is of opinion that few bees go more than two miles from home in search of honey. The number of blossoms visited in order to meet the requirements of a single hive of bees must be very great; for it has been found by A. S. Wilson (“On the Nectar of Flowers,” Bnt. Assoc. Rep., 1878, p. 567) that 125 heads of common red clover, which is a plant comparatively abundant in nectar, yield but one gramme (15 - 432 grains) of sugar; and as each head contains about 60 florets, 7,500,000 distinct flower-tubes must on this estimate be exhausted for each kilogramme (2 ’204 lb) of sugar collected. Among the richer sources of honey are reckoned the apple, asparagus, asters, barberry, basswood (TUiα americana), and the European lime or linden (T. eurορcea), beans, bonesets (Bupatοrium), borage, broom, buckwheat, catnip, or catmint (Nepeta Cataria), cherry, cleome, clover, cotton, crocus, currant, dandelion, eucalyptus, figwort (Scrophularia), furze, golden-rod (Solidago), gooseberry, hawthorn, heather, hepatica, horehound, hyacinth, lucerne, maple, mignonette, mint, motherwort (Beonurus), mustard, onion, peach, pear, poplar, quince, rape, raspberry, sage, silver maple, snapdragon, sour-wood (Oxydendron arboreum, D.C.), strawberry, sycamore, teasel, thyme, tulip-tree (more especially rich in pollen), turnip, violet, and willows, and the “honey-dew” of the leaves of the whitethorn. (Bonner), oak, linden, beech, and some other trees.
Honey contains dextroglucose and laevoglucose (the former practically insoluble, the latter soluble in ⅜ pt. of cold strong alcohol), cane-sugar (according to some), mucilage, water, wax, essential oil, colouring bodies, a minute quantity of mineral matter, and pollen. By a species of fermentation, the cane-sugar is said to be gradually transformed into inverted sugar (laevoglucose with dextroglucose). The pollen, as a source of nitrogen, is of importance to the bees feeding on the honey. It may be obtained for examination as a sediment from a mixture of honey and water. Other substances which have been discovered in honey are mannite (Guibourt), a free acid which precipitates the salts of silver and of lead, and is soluble in water and alcohol (.Calloux), and an uncrystallizable sugar, nearly related to inverted sugar (Soubeiran, Compt. Rend., xxviii. 774-75, 1849). Brittany honey contains couvain, a ferment which determines its active decomposition (Wurtz, Diet, de Chem., ii. 430). In the honey of Polybia apicipenηis, a wasp of tropical America, cane-sugar occurs in crystals of large size (Karsten, Pogg. Ann., C. 550). Dr J. Campbell Brown (“On the Composition of Honey,” Analyst, iii. 267, 1878) is doubtful as to the presence of cane-sugar in any one of nine samples, from various sources, examined by him. The following average percentage numbers are afforded by his analyses :—laevulose, 36 ’ 45; dextrose, 36 - 57; mineral matter, ’ 15; water expelled at 100° C., 18 - 5, and at a much higher temperature, with loss, 7 ’ 81: the wax, pollen, and insoluble matter vary from a trace to 2 1 per cent. The specific gravity of honey is about 1 ’ 41. The rotation of a polarized ray by a solution of 16 ’ 26 grammes of crude honey in 100 c.c. of water is generally from — 3 , 2° to — 5° at 60° F.; in the case of Greek honey it is nearly — 5 ’ 5°. Almost all pure honey, when exposed for some time to light and cold, becomes more or less granular in consistency. Any liquid portion can be readily separated by straining through linen. Honey sold out of the comb is commonly clarified by heating and skimming; but according to Bonner it is always best in its natural state. The mel depuratum of British pharmacy is prepared by heating honey in a water-bath, and straining through flannel previously moistened with warm water.
The term “virgin-honey” (A.-S., huwigtear) is applied to the honey of young bees which have never swarmed, or to that which flows spontaneously from honeycomb with or without the application of heat. The honey obtained from old hives, considered inferior to it in quality, is ordinarily darker, thicker, and less pleasant in taste and odour. The yield of honey is less in proportion to weight in old than in young or virgin combs. The far-famed honey of Narbonne is white, very granular, and highly aromatic; and still finer honey is that procured from the Corbières mountains, 6 to 9 miles to the south-west. The honey of Gâtinais is usually white, and is less odorous, and granulates less readily than that of Narbonne. Honey from white clover has a greenish-white, and that from heather a rich golden-yellow hue. What is made from honey-dew is dark in colour, and disagreeable to the palate, and does not candy like good honey. “We have seen aphide honey from sycamores,” says F. Cheshire (Pract. Bee-Keeping, p. 7 4), “as deep in tone as walnut liquor, and where much of it is stored the value of the whole crop is practically nil." The honey of the stingless bees (Melipoηa and Trigona) of Brazil varies greatly in quality according to the species of flowers from which it is collected, some kinds being black and sour, and others excellent (F. Smith, Trans. Ent. Soc., 3d ser., i. pt. vi., 1863). That of Apis Peronii, of India and Timor, is yellow, and of very agreeable flavour, and is more liquid than the British sorts. A. unicolor, a bee indigenous to Madagascar, and naturalized in Mauritius and the island of Réunion, furnishes a thick and syrupy, peculiarly scented green honey, highly esteemed in Western India. A rose-coloured honey is stated (Gard. Chron., 1870, p. 1698) to have been procured by artificial feeding. The fine aroma of Maltese honey is due to its collection from orange blossoms, Narbonne honey being harvested chiefly from Labiate plants, as rosemary, an imitation of it is sometimes prepared by flavouring ordinary honey with infusion of rosemary flowers.
Adulterations of honey are starch, detectable by the microscope, and by its blue reaction with iodine, also wheaten flour, gelatin, chalk, gypsum, pipe-clay, added water, cane-sugar, and common syrup, and the different varieties of manufactured glucose. Honey sophisticated with glucose containing copperas as an impurity is turned of an inky colour by liquids containing tannin, as tea. Elm leaves have been used in America for the flavouring of imitation honey. Stone jars should be employedin preference to common earthenware for the storage of honey, which acts upon the lead glaze of the latter.
Honey is mildly laxative in properties. Some few kinds are poisonous, as frequently the reddish honey stored by the Brazilian wasp Nectarina (Polistes, Latr.) Lecheguaηa, Shuck., the effects of which have been vividly described by Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, the spring honey of the wild bees of East Nepaul, said to be rendered noxious by collection from rhododendron flowers (Hooker, Himalayan Journals, i. 190, ed. 1855), and the honey of Trebizond, which from its source, the blossoms, it is stated, of Azalea pontica and Rhododendron ponticum (perhaps to be identified with Pliny’s Aegolethroii), acquires the qualities of an irritant and intoxicant narcotic, as described by Xenophon (Anab., iv. 8). Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxi. 45) describes as noxious a livid-coloured honey found in Persia and Gaetulia. Honey obtained from Kalmia latifolia, L., the calico bush, mountain laurel, or spoon-wood of the northern United States, and allied species, is reputed deleterious; also that of the sour-wood is by some good authorities considered to possess undeniable griping properties; and G. Bidie (Madras Quart. Journ. Med. Sci., Oct. 1861, p. 399) mentions urtication, headache, extreme prostration and nausea, and intense thirst among the symptoms produced by a small quantity only of a honey from Coorg jungle. A South African species of Euphorbia, as was experienced by the missionary Moffat (Miss. Lab.,p. 32, 1846), yields a poisonous honey.
The nectar of certain flowers is asserted to cause even in bees a fatal kind of vertigo. As a demulcent and flavouring agent, honey is employed in the oxymel, oxymel scillae, mel boracis, confectio piperis, conf scammonii, and conf, terebinthinae of the British Pharmacopoeia. To the ancients honey was of very great importance as an article of diet, being almost their only available source of sugar. It was valued by them also for its medicinal virtues; and in recipes of the Saxon and later periods it is a common ingredient. Of the eight kinds of honey mentioned by the great Indian surgical writer Susruta, four are not described by recent authors, viz., argha, or wild honey, collected by a sort of yellow bee; ehhatra, made by tawny or yellow wasps; audalaka, a bitter and acrid honey-like substance found in the nest of white ants; and dâla, or unprepared honey occurring on flowers. According to Hindu medical writers, honey when new is laxative, and when more than a year old astringent (U. C. Dutt, Mat. Med. of the Hindus, p. 277, 1877). Ceromel, formed by mixing at a gentle heat one part by weight of yellow wax with four of clarified honey, and straining, is used in India and other tropical countries as a mild stimulant for ulcers in the place of animal fats, which there rapidly become rancid and unfit for medicinal purposes. The Koran, in the chapter entitled “The Bee,” remarks with reference to bees and their honey: “There proceedeth from their bellies a liquor of various colour, wherein is a medicine for men” (Sale’s Koran, chap, xvi.). Pills prepared with honey as an excipient are said to remain unindurated, however long they may be kept (Med. Times, 1857, i. 269). Mead, of yore a favourite beverage in England (vol. iv. p. 264), is made by fermentation of the liquor obtained by boiling in water combs from which the honey has been drained. In the preparation of sack-mead, an ounce of hops is added to each gallon of the liquor, and after the fermentation a small quantity of brandy. Metheglin, or hydromel, is manufactured by fermenting with yeast a solution of honey flavoured with boiled hops (see Cooley, Cyclop.'). A kind of mead is largely consumed in Abyssinia (vol. i. p. 64), where it is carried on journeys in large horns (Stern, Wanderings, p. 317, 1862). In Russia a drink termed liρetz is made from the delicious honey of the linden. The mulsum of the ancient Romans consisted of honey, wine, and water boiled together. The clarre, or piment, of Chaucer’s time was wine mixed with honey and spices, and strained till clear; a similar drink was bracket, made with wort of ale instead of wine. L. Maurial (L ’ Insectologie Agricole for 1868, p. 206) reports unfavourably as to the use of honey for the production of alcohol; he recommends it, however, as superior to sugar for the thickening of liqueurs, and also as a means of sweetening imperfectly ripened vintages. It is occasionally employed for giving strength and flavour to ale. In ancient Egypt it was valued as an embalming material; and in the East, for the preservation of fruit, and the making of cakes, sweatmeats, and other articles of food, it is largely consumed. Grafts, seeds, and birds’ eggs, for transmission to great distances, are sometimes packed in honey. In India a mixture of honey and milk, or of equal parts of curds, honey, and clarified butter (Sansk., madhu-parka), is a respectful offering to a guest, or to a bridegroom on his arrival at the door of the bride’s father; and one of the purificatory ceremonies of the Hindus (Sansk., madhu-ρrasana) is the placing of a little honey in the mouth of a new-born male infant. Honey is frequently alluded to by the writers of antiquity as food for children; it is not to this, however, as already mentioned, that Isa. vii. 15 refers. Cream or fresh butter together with honey, and with or without bread, is a favourite dish with the Arabs.
Among the observances at the Fandrbana, or New Year’s Festival, in Madagascar, is the eating of mingled rice and honey by the queen and her guests; in the same country honey is placed in the sacred water of sprinkling used at the blessing of the children previous to circumcision (Sibree, The Great African Is., pp. 219, 314, 1880). Honey was frequently employed in the ancient religious ceremonies of the heathen, but was forbidden as a sacrifice in the Jewish ritual (Lev. ii. 11). With milk or water it was presented by the Greeks as a libation to the dead (Odyss., xi. 27; Eurip., Orest., 115). A honey-cake was the monthly food of the fabled serpent-guardian of the Acropolis (Herod., viii. 41). By the aborigines of Peru honey was offered to the sun.
The Hebrew word translated “honey” in the authorized version of the English Bible is dcbαsh, practically synonymous with which are jdar or jdarith had-dcbash (1 Sam. xix. 25-27; cf. Cant, v. 1) and nopheth (Ps. xix. 10, &c.), rendered “honey-comb.” Debash denotes bee-honey (as in Dent, xxxii. 13, and Jud. xiv. 8); the manna of trees, by some writers considered to have been the “wild honey” eaten by John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 4); the syrup of dates or the fruits themselves; and probably in some passages (as Gen. xliii. 11 and Ez. xxvii. 17) the syrupy boiled juice of the grape, resembling thin molasses, in use in Palestine, especially at Hebron, under the name of. dibs (see Kitto, Cyclop., and E. Robinson, Bibl. Res., ii. 81). Josephus (B. J., iv. 8, 3) speaks highly of a honey produced at Jericho, consisting of the expressed juice of the fruit of palm trees; and Herodotus (iv. 194) mentions a similar preparation made by the Gyzantians in North Africa, where it is still in use. The honey most esteemed by the ancients was that of Mount Hybla in Sicily, and of Mount Hymettus in Attica (vol. iii. p. 59). Mahaffy {Rambles in Greece, p. 148, 2d ed., 1878) describes the honey of Hymettus as by no means so good as the produce of other parts of Greece—not to say of the heather hills of Scotland and Ireland. That of Thebes, and more especially that of Corinth, which is made in the thymy hills towards Cleonae, he found much better (c∕. vol. xi. p. 88). Honey and wax, still largely obtained in Corsica (vol. vi. p. 440), were in olden times the chief productions of the island. In England, in the 13th and 14th centuries, honey sold at from about 7d. to Is. 2d. a gallon, and occasionally was disposed of by the swarm or hive, or ruscha (Rogers, Hist, of Agric. and Prices in Eng., i. 418). At Wrexham, Denbigh, Wales, two honey fairs are annually held, the one on the Thursday next after the 1st September, and the other, the more recently instituted and by far the larger, on the Thursday following the first Wednesday in October. In Hungary the amounts of honey and of wax are in favourable years respectively about 190,000 and 12,000 cwt., and in unfavourable years, as, e.g., 1874, about 12,000 and 3000 cwt. The hives there in 1870 numbered 617,407 (or 40 per 1000 of the population, against 45 in Austria). Of these 365,711 were in Hungary Proper, and 91,348 (87 per 1000 persons) in the Military Frontier (Keleti, Uebersicht der Bevölk. Ungarns, 1871; Schwicker, Statistik d. K. Ungarn, 1877). In Poland the system of bee-keeping introduced by Dolinowski has been found to afford an average of 40 tt> of honey and wax and two new swarms per hive, the common peasant’s hive yielding, with two swarms, only 3 lb of honey and wax. In forests and places remote from villages in Podolia and parts of Volhynia, as many as 1000 hives may be seen in one apiary. In the district of Ostrolenka, in the government of Plock, and in the woody region of Polesia, in Lithuania, a method is practised of rearin" bees in excavated trunks of trees (Stanton, “On the Treatment of Bees in Poland,” Technologist, vi. 45, 1866). When, in August, in the loftier valleys of Bormio, Italy, flowering ceases, the bee ι in their wooden hives are by means of spring-carts transported at night to lower regions, where they obtain from the buckλvheat crops the inferior honey which serves them for winter consumption {Ib., p. 38).
In Palestine, “the land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. iii. 17; Numb, xiii. 27), wild bees are very numerous, especially in the wilderness of Judaea, and the selling of their produce, obtained from crevices in rocks, hollows in trees, and elsewhere, is with many of the inhabitants a means of subsistence. Commenting on 1 Sam. xiv. 26, J. Roberts (Oriental Illust. )remarks that in the East “the forests literally flow with honey; large combs may be seen hanging on the trees, as you pass along, full of honey.” In Galilee, and at Bethlehem and other places in Palestine, bee-keeping is extensively carried on. The hives are sun-burnt tubes of mud, about 4 feet in length and 8 inches in diameter, and, with the exception of a small central aperture for the passage of the bees, closed at each...
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דבש. It is probable, that it was in order to keep the Jews at a distance from the customs of the Heathen, who were used to offer honey in their sacrifices, that God forbade it to be offered to him, that is to say, burnt upon the altar, Lev. ii, 11; but at the same time he commanded that the first-fruits of it should be presented. These first-fruits and offerings were designed for the support and sustenance of the priests, and were not consumed upon the altar. In hot weather, the honey burst the comb, and ran down the hollow trees or rocks, where, in the land of Judea, the bees deposited great store of it. This, flowing spontaneously, was the best and most delicious, as it was quite pure, and clear from all dregs and wax. The Israelites called it יערה, _wood honey_. It is therefore improperly rendered “honeycomb,” 1 Sam. xiv, 27; Cant. v, 1; in both which places it means the honey that has distilled from the trees, as distinguished from the domestic, which was eaten with the comb. Hasselquist says, that between Acra and Nazareth, great numbers of wild bees breed, to the advantage of the inhabitants; and Maundrell observes of the great plain near Jericho, that he perceived in it, in many places, a smell of honey and wax as strong as if he had been in an apiary. Milk and honey were the chief dainties of the earlier ages, and continue to be so of the Bedoween Arabs now. So butter and honey are several times mentioned in Scripture as among the most delicious refreshments, 2 Sam. xvii, 29; Job xx, 17; Cant. iv, 11; Isaiah vii, 15. Thus Irby and Mangles, in their Travels, relate, “They gave us some honey and butter together, with bread to dip in it, Narsah desiring one of his men to mix the two ingredients for us, as we were awkward at it. The Arab, having stirred ...the mixture up well with his fingers, showed his dexterity at consuming, as well as mixing, and recompensed himself for his trouble by eating half of it.” The _wild honey_, μέλι ἄγριον, mentioned to have been a part of the food of John the Baptist, Matt. iii, 4, was probably such as he got in the rocks and hollows of trees. Thus, “honey out of the stony rock,” Psalm lxxxi, 16; Deut. xxxii, 13.
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HONEY-EATER, or Honey-sucker, names applied by many writers in a very loose way to a large number of birds, some of which, perhaps, have no intimate affinity; but here to be used, as before in this work (Birds, vol. iii. p. 739), in a more restricted sense for what, in the opinion of a good many recent authorities, should really be deemed the Family Meliphagidoe — excluding therefrom the Hecta- riniidoe or Sun-birds (which see) as well as the genera Promerops and Zoster ops with whatever allies they may possess. Even with this restriction, the extent of the Family must be regarded as very indefinite, owing to the absence of materials sufficient for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion, though the existence of such a Family is probably indisputable. Making allowance then for the imperfect light in which they must at present be viewed, what are here called Meliphagidoe include some of the most characteristic forms of the ornithology of the great Australian Region—members of the. Family inhabiting almost every part of it, and a single species only, Ptilotis limbata, being said to occur outside its limits. They all possess, or are supposed to possess, a long protrusible tongue with a brushlike tip, differing, it is believed, in structure from that found in any other bird,— Promerops perhaps excepted,— and capable of being formed into a suctorial tube, by means of which honey is absorbed from the nectary of flowers, though it would seem that insects attracted by the honey furnish the chief nourishment of many species, while others undoubtedly feed to a greater or less extent on fruits. The Meliphagidoe, as now considered, are for the most part small birds, never exceeding the size of a Mistletoe Thrush; and they have been divided into more than 20 genera, containing ...above 200 species, of which only a few can here be particularized. Most of these species have a very confined range, being found perhaps only on a single island or group of islands in the Region, but there are a few which are more widely distributed—such as Glycyphila rιιfifrons, the White-throated Honey-eater, found over the greater part of Australia and Tasmania. In plumage they vary much. Most of the species of Ptilotis are characterized by a tuft of white, or in others of yellow, feathers springing from behind the ear. In the greater number of the genus Myzomela ? the males are recognizable by a gorgeous display of crimson or scarlet, which has caused one species, Μ. sanguinolenta, to be known as the Soldier-bird to Australian colonists; but in others no brilliant colour appears, and those of several genera have no special ornamentation, while some have a particularly plain appearance. One of the most curious forms is Prosthemadera— the Tui or Parson-bird of New Zealand, so called from the two tufts of white feathers which hang beneath its chin in great contrast to its dark silky plumage, and suggest a likeness to the bands worn by ministers of several religious denominations when officiating. The Bell-bird of the same island, Anthorιιis melaηura— whose melody excited the admiration of Cook the morning after he had anchored in Queen Charlotte’s Sound—is another member of this Family, and unfortunately seems to be fast becoming extinct. But it would be impossible here to enter much further into detail, though the Wattle-birds, Anthochoera, of Australia have at least to be named. Mention, however, must be made of the Friar-birds, Tropidorhynchus, of which nearly a score of species, five of them belonging to Australia, have been described. With their stout bills, mostly surmounted by an excrescence, they seem to be the most abnormal forms of the Family, and most of them are besides remarkable for the baldness of some part at least of their head. They assemble in troops, sitting on dead trees, with a loud call, and are very pugnacious, frequently driving away Hawks and Crows. Mr Wallace {Malay Archipelago, ii. pp. 150- 153) discovered the curious fact that two species of this genus,— P. bourensis and P. subcornutus,— respectively inhabiting the islands of Bouru and Ceram, were the object of natural “mimicry” on the part of two species of Oriole of the genus Mimeta, Μ. bouroueηsis and Μ. forsteni, inhabiting the same islands, so as to be on a superficial examination identical in appearance,—the Honey-eater and the Oriole of each island presenting exactly the same tints, —the black patch of bare skin round the eyes of the former, for instance, being copied in the latter by a patch of black feathers and even the protuberance on the beak of the Tropidorhynchus being imitated by a similar enlargement of the beak of the Mimeta. The very reasonable explanation which Mr Wallace offers is that the pugnacity of the former has led the smaller Birds-of-prey to respect it, and it is therefore an advantage for the latter, being weaker and less courageous, to be mistaken for it. (a. n.)
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HONEY-GUIDE, a bird so called from its habit or supposed habit of pointing out to man and to the Ratel {Mellivora capemsis) the nests of bees. Stories to this effect have been often told, and may be found in the narratives of many African travellers, from Bruce to Livingstone. Yet Mr Layard says {Β. South Africa, p. 242) that the birds will not unfrequently lead any one to a leopard or a snake, and will follow a dog with vociferations, so that at present judgment may perhaps be suspended on the matter, though its noisy· cry and antics unquestionably have in many cases the effect signified by its English name. If not its first discoverer, Sparrman, in 1777, was the first who described and figured this bird, which he met with in the Cape Colony {Phil. Transactions, Ixvii. pp. 42-47, pl. i.), giving it the name of Cuculus indicator, its zygodactylous feet with the toes placed in pairs—two before and two behind—inducing the belief that it must be referred to that genus. Vieillot in 1816 elevated it to the rank of a genus, Indicator ; but it was still considered to belong to the Family Cuculidoe (its asserted parasitical habits lending force to that belief) by all systematists except Blyth and Jerdon, until it was shewn by Mr Blanford {Obs. Geol. and Zool. Abyssinia, pp. 308, 309) and Mr Sclater {Ibis, 1870, pp. 176-180) that it was more allied to the Barbets, Capitonidoe, and, in consequence, was then made the type of a distinct Family, Indicatoridae. In the meanwhile other species had been discovered, some of them differing sufficiently to warrant Sundevall’s foundation of a second genus, Prodotiscus, of the group. The Honey-Guides are small birds, the largest hardly exceeding a Lark in size, and of plain plumage, with what appears to be a very Sparrow-like bill. ...Mr Sharpe, in a revision of the Family published in 1876 {0rn. Miscellany, i. pp. 192— 209), recognizes ten species of the genus Indicator, to which another has since been added by Dr Reichenow {Jourη. für Ornithologie, 1877, p. 110), and two of Prodotiscus. Four species of the former, including I. sparrmaηi, which was the first made known, are found in South Africa, and one of the latter. The rest inhabit other parts of the same continent, except I. archipelagicus, which seems to be peculiar to Borneo, and I. xanthonotus, which occurs on the Himalayas from the borders of Afghanistan to Bhotan. The interrupted geographical distribution of this genus is a very curious fact, no species having been found in the Indian or Malayan peninsula to connect the outlying forms with those of Africa, which must be regarded as their metropolis. (a. n.)
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