394 



ZOOLOGY 



plants. Nevertheless, it is quite a mistake to suppose, as some travellers 

 have done, that it is unfit for progression on land. It can take tremendous 

 leaps, and gets over the ground at a great pace, little, if at all, hindered 

 by its splay feet. 



The orycteropus. or ant bear, a huge edentate of nocturnal habits, is 

 found in the eastern part of the Uganda Protectorate, though not, I believe, 

 in Uganda projier or in the Western Province. It is, however, very common 

 in the Kift ^'alley, round about Lake Baringo, and in Kavirondo, to the 

 south of Mount Elgon. Here it enters largely into the native beast 

 stories. The only other edentate in the country, of course, is the manis, 

 a creature so utterly distinct in formation from the ant bear (though 

 not so far removed from the armadillos and other edentates of South 

 America) that several biologists have considered the oryctero^jus to have 



244. speklV ■il;A..i:i.AFH (umxotr.-icus spekei) 



