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horse." Several gentiemen have informed me that in digging canals, 

 and in making roads, they have opened the buiTows of Alligators, and 

 have been obliged to remove them out of their way : on one occasion, an 

 Alligator had been wounded by a man who was not aware of it at the 

 moment — the animal ran some distance with the man, who had acciden- 

 tally fallen astride on its back. 



I am credibly informed, that when hunters camp out in the forest, the 

 Alligators of the neighboring waters watch for the offal of the camp, during 

 which they are often easily noosed with the lasso, and are then dragged 

 from the water by horses. 



The following case, which may be fully relied on, shows that Alli- 

 gators do not bear herculian doses of physic : Mr. I., an educated 

 gentleman, engaged in the study of medicine, living near Fort Pike, in 

 Louisiana, having observed, in 1845, a recent "Alligator's wallow," and 

 having at the same time killed a snake, he opened its abdomen, into 

 which he inserted about three grains of strychnine, carefully enveloped 

 in several folds of letter paper, Vv hich, being properly secured, the snake 

 was left for the Alligator, which, the next day, was found dead, with its 

 abdomen turned up. The snake had disappeared. The Alligator had 

 been poisoned. 



Alligators commit errors of diet. The following is a fatal instance : A 

 gentleman of the State of Mississippi informed me, that having been, with 

 others, on a hunting excursion, one of the party finding that the whiskey 

 bottle, which he had been carrying, was now empty, he threw it to an 

 Alligator which was swimming near, in a lagoon. The animal suddenly 

 seized and crushed it. On returning to the same place in a few days 

 after, the animal was found dead, with its abdomen greatly distended and 

 turned upward. A physician being present, it was determined to make 

 a post mortem examination. Broken fragments of the bottle, with putrid 

 fish, were found in the stomach and bowels. These organs were, in 

 many places, quite mortified, and emitted a foetor, so horrible, that my 

 informant was nauseated, and which, in his opinion, caused the doctor's 

 sickness and death — occurrences which took place soon after the post 

 mortem examination. 



I have examined several wounds which Alligators had received during 

 the conflict in which they were captured. The following is a good 

 example of Crocodilian liypercEmia or inflammation : A torn and con- 

 tused wound, of two or three inches in length, between the fingers, was 

 tumefied, but without redness* Granulations appeared, coated over with 

 a dense transparent exudation, not flakey, but resembling half coagulated 

 albumen. On touching these, the animal expressed great pain, with- 

 drawing its limb and blowing loudly. Another foot which had been 

 bruised and swollen, without any breach of the skin, presented extensive 

 exfoliations of the cuticle, leaving the true skin white. Some recent 

 bruises on the muzzle and in the mouth, together with an incision which 

 I made in the back with the lancet, discharged a little thin, pale, scarlet 

 colored blood. The general hue incidental to inflammation in man, 

 did not occur. It was ichite — analagous types of which do sometimes 

 happen in ordinary practice, as in white swelling, phlegmasia dolens, 

 and in some fatal cases of glottidian and laryngeal hypersemia, in which 

 the submucous tissue is white, though swelled and infiltrated with Ivm- 



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