AMERICAN ALLIGATOR, ]3l 



XL 



Fafa relative to the Torpid State of the North American Alligator. 

 By Benjamin Smith Barton, M. D. *. 



IT has not, I think, been remarked by the generality of the 

 writers on natural hiftory, that the North American Alligator 

 pafTes during the prevalence of cold weather, into the torpid 

 ftale. This however, is unqueftionably the cafe in fome parts 

 of the continent. 



Mr. Boflu, a French writer, after telling us that thefe Account by 

 animals are numerous in the Red River, one of the weftern y 

 branches of the Miffiffippi, fays, " they are torpid during the 

 cold weather, and lie in the mud with their mouths open, into 

 which the fifti enter as into a funnel, and neither advance 

 nor go back. The Indians then get upon their backs, and 

 kill them by ftriking their heads with hatchets, and this is a 

 kind of diverfion for them f. 



Dr. Fofter, the tranflator of the work, obferves in the pre- 

 ceding patTage, <r that the circumflance of the alligator's 

 being torpid during winter is quite new, and very remarkable 

 for natural hiftory." It feems (he adds) almofl all the clafs of 

 animals called amphibia, by Dr. Linnxus, when founci in cold 

 climates grow torpid during winter. 



In addition to the authority of Mr. Bofiu, I may here Another ac- 

 mention the following fa&, which was communicated to me Graham, 

 about the year 1785, by a Mr. Graham, at that time a very 

 intelligent ftudent of medicine in the Univerfity of Penn- 

 fylvania. 



" The alligator having previoufly fwallowed a number of The aJll S ator 



, . «-.iii •• ., fwallows pine- 



pine-knots, retires to his hole, where he remains in a torpid ]^ nots previous 

 ftate, during the feverity of winter. If killed at this feafon, t0 becoming 

 thefe knots are found highly poliihed by their trituration one torpi * 

 againft the other in the animal's ftomach, as I have more 

 than once heard from men of undoubted veracity, who had 



* From " the Philadelphia Medical and Phyfical Journal". Col- 

 Je£ted and arranged by Ben. Smith Barton, M. D. It is publi/hed 

 in half yearly Numbers, the firft of which appeared in November, 

 1804. 



f Travels through that part of North America formerly called 

 Xouifiana. Englifh Tranflation, Vol. I. p. 367, London 1771. 



K 2 been 



