12 The Alligator and Its Allies 



of the animal before being seen or heard by him. 

 At the first alarm he slides quietly or plunges 

 quickly into the muddy water, and the hunter 

 must wait long if he expects to see the 'gator come 

 to the surface. 



The opening of the cave is always below the 

 surface of the water, but it is possible that there 

 may be a subterranean chamber that is not com- 

 pletely filled with water. How the animal is 

 gotten from his cave will be described later. Ac- 

 cording to some writers the alligator retires to his 

 cave to hibernate during the cooler winter months. 

 This is possibly true in the more northerly limits 

 of his range. It is well known that if kept in cool 

 water the alligator will lie dormant and refuse all 

 food for months at a time. The writer has had 

 young alligators in captivity, under these condi- 

 tions, that refused food from late in the autumn 

 until nearly the first of April. 



The proprietor of one of the largest alligator 

 farms in the country says: "Our alligators stop 

 eating the first week in October and do not begin 

 to eat until the latter part of April. We have 

 experimented with our stock to see if we could get 

 them to eat in the winter, and found that by keep- 

 ing the water in the tanks at a certain temperature 

 they would eat, but we found out that the warm 

 water would make their bowels move, and that 

 they would not eat enough to keep themselves up, 

 as in the summer, and as a result they would be- 



