96 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



grass, and stand ready to seize upon any animal 

 brushing its way through. Attaching themselves 

 firmly to the hide of their host, they suck its blood; 

 if the ticks contain any parasites derived from a 

 previous meal on a buffalo they will probably transfer 

 it to their new host. Millions of ticks cover the 

 grass and bushes near the haunts and feeding places 

 of the wild buffalo ; three distinct species of Rhipi- 

 cephalus (R. sangmneus, R. appendiculatus, and 

 R. pulchellus) have been found in the swamps of the 

 Pangani River. In this connection it is interesting 

 to note that another tick (R. australis) develops 

 Texas fever in man by harbouring within it the 

 curious Piroplasma bigeminum. The piroplasma at 

 at first exists as a pyriform parasite in a red blood- 

 corpuscle of its first host (cattle) ; on being drawn 

 into the stomach of the female tick it acts in some 

 way (perhaps by breaking up and passing though 

 the walls of the stomach) so that her offspring are 

 infected with trypanosomes and are able to spread 

 the disease by their bites. One thus sees the 

 importance of protecting those feathered police, the 

 rhinoceros birds, which by ridding the wild game of 

 ticks hinder the spread of blood diseases. 



The red Congo buffalo or bush cow appears to 

 have first been known from a specimen described by 

 Belon, as early as 1555, as the "Petit Bceuf 

 d'Afrique ;" a pair of horns probably the same as 

 described by Belon were preserved in the Royal 



