118 THE SWAMPS OF XHE MISSISSIPPI. 



thimble, exposing the under tooth, accurately formed and perfectly mature, 

 (in f&ci, semper paratus,) ior whatever either living or dead substance may 

 come in his way. 



As the age of animals is frequently arrived at by examination of the teeth, 

 it would be difficult to determine the age of the Alligator by his ; and from 

 this circumstance, I have set him down just as old as any other Alligator, 

 which corroborates the reply of an honest man once selling a horse, who, on 

 being asked the age of it, cautiously replied, that it was just as old as any 

 otlier man's horse, being ignorant whether youth or old age was the greatest 

 recommendation. 



Sometime after this event, I got information of a very large one which 

 had repeatedly been seen in a prairie bordering on lake Wadchoctaw. I 

 immediately set out in search of him, but after scrambling for the greater 

 part of a hot day, through mud and cane-brake, I could not fall in with him ; 

 and as the sun was nearly down, I passed the evening in a marshy clump of 

 Cedars and Cypresses, listening to the Mocking Bird, which was occasionally 

 intruded upon by the snore of an Alligator, sufficient to have rivalled 

 Lablache himself in some of his deepest intonations. 



The last few evenings I spent in the Swamps, I amused myself in paddling 

 close by the edge of the lagoons, and setting fire to the cane and long 

 grasses, which were previously reduced nearly to tinder by the heat of the 

 sun, and the terrific grandeur of these burning savannahs is beyond descrip- 

 tion ; this is a common practice with the men, not so much for effect as 

 utility, for the seeds which many of these grasses bear are the finest feeding 

 for Ducks, and which these birds never can get to unless thrown down in 

 this manner, the seed immediately falling into the marsh Avhenever the 

 stalks give way. There is abundance of feeding in addition to this, par- 

 ticularly wild celery, which is in profusion, and well known to be the prin- 

 cipal food of these birds. I must now sit down, but not before expressing 

 my gratitude for the kindness which I experienced from the men while 

 roosting amongst them at lake Cataawatchaa, one of whom, named Booteau, 

 oflfered me the greatest proportion of his day's shooting the night I was 

 leaving, probably to supply me with funds for a game at euchar and poker, 

 two well known games in the West. 



Booteau had figured very conspicuously (as he told me himself) as a 

 Matador in the bull-ring at Algiers, in the vicinity of New Orleans ; and sub- 

 sequently, kept a gymnasium somewhere in the West, where pistol shooting 

 and the use of the bowie-knife were taught gratis. I took my leave of the 

 learned Professor and his colleagues reluctantly, and continued my journey 

 to Cuba, the Blue Mountains in Jamaica, Porto Rico, and also to the mag- 

 nificent and picturesque island of Haili, justly named the queen of the 

 Antilles, in constant pursuit of the fowls of the air ; and in the last-named 

 island, I expected to have procured a specimen of Le Musicien, a bird called 



