The American Alligator 11 



ticed by the Lees and other inhabitants of the re^on, 

 consist mainly of going out at night in small boats 

 and locating the animals by means of a lamp fastened 

 to the head of one hunter in the bow of the boat. An- 

 other hunter in the stern paddles or poles and uses 

 the sharp end of the push pole to 'stick' the body after 

 the animal has been shot and has sunk to the bottom. 

 According to these hunters, who every year take out a 

 large number of skins, the eyes of the small alligators 

 appear red by the light thus used, while those of the 

 large specimens are yellow. The hunter carrying the 

 light swings his head from side to side through an arc 

 of 180 degrees, and when an alligator is sighted, shoots 

 it by the light of the lamp on his head. The common 

 supposition that the skin of an alligator will turn the 

 bullet of a gun is, of course, unfounded. Since, how- 

 ever, only the head of the animal is usually exposed 

 when it is in the water, they are commonly shot 

 through the eyes. The hunters generally use a shot- 

 gun loaded with buckshot. That a large number of 

 alligators are annually secured in this manner is 

 evidenced by the fact that the fields of the Lees are 

 strewn with the skeletons and dorsal strips of skin 

 which have been thrown away after each expedition. 

 Only the ventral part of the skin is saved, the upper 

 portions being too thick and spiny to admit of the 

 primitive methods of tanning, and therefore, the crest 

 and dorsal scales are not retained." 



Alligators were formerly extremely numerous 

 throughout their range, and their sluggish forms, 

 often mistaken for stranded logs, were a familiar sight 

 on the banks of every body of water in the South. 

 Steady hunting for their skins during the past sixty 

 years, the robbing of their nests for eggs, the capture 

 of large numbers of the newly hatched young for 

 "souvenirs", and wanton slaughter by so-called sports- 

 men, have decimated the species to such an extent that 



[35] 



