HONEY-GUIDE, a bird so called from its habit of pointing out to man and to the ratel (Mellivora capensis) 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. But Layard says (B. South Africa, p. 242) that the birds will not infrequently lead any one to a leopard or a snake, and will follow a dog with vociferations, 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. Trans., lxvii. 42-47, pl. i.), giving it the name of Culculus 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. Vicillot in 1816 elevated it to the rank of a genus, Indicator; but it was still considered to belong to the family Cuculidae (its asserted parasitical habits lending force to that belief) by all systematists except Blyth and Jerdon, until it was shown by Blanford (Obs. Geol. and Zool. Abyssinia, pp. 308, 309) and Sclater (Ibis, 1870, pp. 176-180) that it was more allied to the barbets, Capitonidae, 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. Bowdler Sharpe, in a revision of the family published in 1876 (Orn. Miscellany, i. 192-209), recognizes ten species of the genus Indicator, to which another was added by Dr Reichenow (Journ. für Ornithologie, 1877, p. 110), and two of Prodotiscus. Four species of the former, including I. sparrmani, 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 Bhutan. 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.)

HONEY LOCUST, the popular name of a tree, Gleditsia triacanthos, a member of the natural order Leguminosae, and a native of the more eastern United States of North America. It reaches from 75 to 140 ft. in height with a trunk 2 or 3, or sometimes 5 or 6 ft. in diameter, and slender spreading branches which form a broad, flattish crown. The branchlets bear numerous simple or three-forked (whence the species-name triacanthos) sharp stiff spines, 3 to 4 in. long, at first red in colour, then chestnut brown; they are borne above the leaf-axils and represent undeveloped branchlets; sometimes they are borne also on the trunk and main branches. The long-stalked leaves are 7 to 8 in. long with eight to fourteen pairs of narrowly oblong leaflets. The flowers, which are of two kinds, are borne in racemes in the leaf-axils; the staminate flowers in larger numbers. The brown pods are often 12 to 18 in. long, have thin, tough walls, and contain a quantity of pulp between the seeds; they contract spirally when drying. The tree was first cultivated in Europe towards the end of the 17th century by Bishop Compton in his garden at Fulham, near London, and is now extensively planted as an ornamental tree. The name of the genus commemorates Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch (1714-1786), a friend of Linnaeus, and the author of one of the earliest works on scientific forestry.

HONEYMOON, the first month after marriage. Lord Avebury in his Origin of Civilization suggests that the seclusion usually associated with this period is a survival of marriage by capture, and answers to the period during which the husband kept his wife in retirement, to prevent her from appealing to her relatives for release. Others suggest that as the moon commences to wane as soon as it is at its full, so does the mutual affection of the wedded pair, the “honeymoon” (with this derivation) not necessarily referring to any definite period of time.

Honeysuckle.—(a) Flowering branch; (b) Flower, nat. size; (c) fruit, slightly reduced.

HONEYSUCKLE (Mid. Eng., honysocle, i.e. any plant from which honey may be sucked,—cf. A.-S. huni-suge, privet; Ger. Geissblatt; Fr. chèvrefeuille), botanical name Lonicera, a genus of climbing, erect or prostrate shrubs, of the natural order Caprifoliaceae, so named after the 16th-century German botanist Adam Lonicer. The British species is L. Periclymenum, the woodbine; L. Caprifolium and L. Xylosteum are naturalized in a few counties in the south and east of England. Some of the garden varieties of the woodbine are very beautiful, and are held in high esteem for their delicious fragrance, even the wild plant, with its pale flowers, compensating for its sickly looks “with never-cloying odours.” The North American sub-evergreen L. sempervirens, with its fine heads of blossoms, commonly called the trumpet honeysuckle, the most handsome of all the cultivated honeysuckles, is a distinct and beautiful species producing both scarlet and yellow flowered varieties, and the Japanese L. flexuosa var. aureoreticulata is esteemed for its charmingly variegated leaves netted with golden yellow. The fly honeysuckle, L. Xylosteum, a hardy shrub of dwarfish, erect habit, and L. tatarica, of similar habit, both European, are amongst the oldest English garden shrubs, and bear axillary flowers of various colours, occurring two on a peduncle. There are numerous other species, many of them introduced to our gardens, and well worth cultivating in shrubberies or as climbers on walls and bowers, either for their beauty or the fragrance of their blossoms.