140 



THE WESTEKX PROVINCE 



with the coast of Lake Albert, there are bold heights, rising perhaps 

 here and there to altitudes of 6,000 feet, though the average elevation 

 of Unvoro is quite 1,000 feet below that of Uganda. Some of these 



114. C<.ll .N I Kl Willi 



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hills or mountains are of striking aspect, great wedges of table-land 

 left standing and isolated. Occasionally, however, these worn-down 

 fragments are in sliape and outline like those rounded posts which were 

 formerly used to bar the way to vehicles on roads or passages intended 

 for pedestrians only. Their sides are almost perpendicular, but the top 

 is rounded. There are also, as in Xorthern Toro and ^^'estern Uganda, 

 piles of huge boulders and weather-worn crags of naked rock which look 

 like a Stouehenge in ruins, or the fragments of a Iniilding raised by 

 Cyclopean masons. 



In this open country of rocks and grass which is so characteristic of 

 Central Unyoro, Western Uganda, and Eastern Toro, there are many birds 

 of prey which find these crags and peaks and inaccessible monoliths 

 convenient eyries for nesting, while the open country enables them to 

 mark down and seize their prey — anything from a rat to a small antelope. 

 A common and beautiful object in countries like this is the bateleur eagle, 

 which is rather a peculiar development of the fish-eagle group, with the 

 most vivid coloration, perhaps, to be found in any bird of prey. The bateleur 

 eagle is styled "tailless" in its specific name because the feathers of the 

 tail are extremely reduced in size, and are completely concealed in the 

 folded wings when the bird is at rest, while they are merged in outline 

 with the great secondary quills of the outspread wings when the bird is 

 soaring. Watching one of these eagles one day sailing in circles above 



