TANGANYIKA (1) 139 
animal, and if it is unable to escape it will be overcome, no matter 
what situation it is in or how big it is. Often the eyes of an animal 
are eaten out long before its death. To safeguard my birds against 
them I had long trestle tables made to stand their traveling cages 
on, and each leg stood in a large tin partly filled with water on 
which was poured paraffin. This proved to be an effective barrier, 
but care had to be taken that not a single thing was leaning 
against the cages, and not even a blade of straw across one of the 
tins to act as a bridge, otherwise all one’s precautions might be 
in vain. 
Much of my time was taken up making excursions to the edge 
of the forest where I had located a few pairs of the beautiful 
seed-eaters called Peters’ Spotted Waxbills. They frequent the 
thick scrub and seem always to pick up their food (mainly seeds) 
from the ground. They are skulking creatures preferring to feed 
under bushes or on their very edge where cover is close at hand. 
The only successful way of trapping them is to bait a number of 
places under bushes for a week or two until it is noticed that birds 
are coming there to feed. As they are not gregarious it is rarely 
that a patch is frequented by more than two pairs, so one has to 
operate over a fairly wide field. These waxbills, however, are ex- 
ceedingly local and are rarely found except where the right type 
of scrub, interspersed with grass, is at hand. When one knows 
this, one can say almost for certain if any piece of territory harbors 
these beautiful but shy birds. 
I found that several of my captive Peters’ Spotted Waxbills were 
suffering from some eye trouble; strangely enough, those so 
affected were all hens. The symptom was a slight swelling in the 
inner corner of the eye, and usually both eyes were affected. So 
bad was one bird, which was moping and looked as if it was about 
to die, that I made a close examination and was quite mystified 
by the apparent swelling. Drastic action was called for, so by 
sharpening some tweezers J was able to grip the mysterious ob- 
struction embedded deeply in the corner of the eye. I pulled 
gently, and to my horror out came a leech-like parasite about 
three-quarters of an inch long which moved in caterpillar-like 
fashion when released on a table. The bird seemed instantly re- 
lieved and quickly regained its normal health. I treated several 
