THE ALLIGATOR: FOOD AND FEEDING. 143 



the shore that the fish had no method of escaping but through the mouth, where they were 

 entrapped. Incidit in Sci/llam, qui milt vitare Charybdim." 1 



PUGNACITY OF THE ALLIGATOR. When we come to consider the possibility of the Alligator's 

 ability to attack successfully large terrestrial animals, such as horses and cows, as well as men, 

 we find ourselves in great doubt. The accumulated testimony of travelers and observers on 

 this point can hardly be set aside, although several critical writers have done so, with ridicule. 

 Whether it was that the earlier observers, misled by the forbidding appearance of the Alligator, 

 were repeatedly imposed upon by fabulous stories, or whether they actually saw, at least in part, 

 what they recorded, seems to me, I must confess, a very open question. To cite all the accounts 

 of mishaps which are said to have occurred to man and beast through the aggressiveness of the 

 Alligator, would be to fill many pages of this volume. I can only refer to one or two prominent 

 examples. 



Herrara gives the following account of the Alligator in the harbor near Porto Belo, at the 

 Isthmus of Panama, on the occasion of Columbus's explorations there in 1502: 



" In the Harbour there were extraordinary large Alligators, that went to sleep ashore, and 

 smelt like Musk, being so ravenous, that if they find a Man asleep on the Land, they drag him 

 away to devour him: tho' they are so timorous, that they fly, when attack'd. There are many of 

 them in these Rivers that fall into the North Sea, but many more in those that empty themselves 

 in the South Sea, and they are very like, if not the same as the Crocodiles of the River Nile." 2 



Raleigh, after his allusion to the "river of Lagartos," a tributary of the Orinoko, as already 

 quoted, adds: "I had a negro a very proper yoong fellow, who leaping out of the galley to swim 

 in the mouth of the river, was in all our sights takeu and devoured with one of those lagartos." 3 



Herrara, again, relating what happened to the Spaniards in Central America in 1516, writes: 



"At Panama an Alligator has been known to take a Man off from the Stearn of a Boat, and 

 carry him away to the Rocks, where as he was tearing him in pieces he was kill'd by a Musket 

 Shot: the Man being recover'd as the Monster was biting him off near the Groin was carried to the 

 Hospital, where he liv'd long enough to receive the Rites of the Church." 4 



Velasquez seems also to have been impressed with the ferocity of the Alligator during his 

 sojourn in Cuba. By Herrara he is made to say : 



"On the South Side about the Middle there runs down into the Sea a mighty River, which the 

 Indians call Canto, the Banks of it are very agreeable, and in it are a vast Multitude of Alligators. 

 Those who happen to be benighted near it, must be upon their Guard, for those Creatures then 

 come out of the Water, walk about the Laud, and if they can surprize a Man, they drag him into 

 the Water, and devour him. They sometimes do so by such as venture to ford the River, and even 

 by Horses. They are to be found all over the Indies, especially to the southward, but in Cuba only 

 in this River." 5 



In the eighteenth century the writer who is most loud in the denunciation of the Alligator is 

 Bartram. He has devoted several pages of his book to the relation of the habits of these animals, 

 from which I will quote a few lines. Although he begins his account with a query as to how he 

 shall do credit to what he observed without arousing the suspicion of his readers regarding his 

 veracity, his description seems overdrawn : 



"My apprehensions were highly alarmed after being a spectator of so dreadful a battle; it was 

 obvious that every delay would but tend to increase my dangers and difficulties, as the sun was 



1 DOWLER, BENNET, M. D. : Contributions to the Natural History of the Alligator. New Orleans, 1846. 



'HERRARA (STEVENS): Hist. Amrr., i, I?;!.",, p. \>~\. 



r> RALEIGH : lot: oil., p. 137. 



4 HERRARA (STEVENS): Hist. Amer., ii, 17:i5, p. 100. 



"HKRKARA (STEVENS): Hist. Amer., ii, 1725, pp. 11, la. 



