21 



Any one who will examine tlie unyielding osseous ])oundaries of the 

 palato-pharyngeal, and maxillary regions will find, that their diameters 

 absolutely forbid the idea of this animal swallowing a horse, an ox, or a 

 tiger, any more than a 74 gun ship ; though a small calf, a dog, or a pig, 

 is quite a different matter. 



The engineer of the Water Works, of New Orleans, formerly resident 

 in the country, was one day, during a visit to a neighboring planter, 

 called upon to witness the manner in which an alligator catches its prey. 

 The planter had just seen it catch one pig ; and for his friends amuse- 

 ment, determined to let it catch another. The pig, which was small, 

 continued to root about the alligator's head, until it came nigh enough to 

 be caught. After many efforts, the alligator swallowed the pig. The 

 planter shot the alligator immediately, and directed his negroes to open 

 it, with large knives. The two pigs were found quite dead — not masti- 

 Gated, but marked by penetrating wounds, from the teeth — an eel, quite 

 natural in appearance, and about a peck of cotton seed were also found 

 in the stomach. 



Many authors assert, that alligators cannot sicallow under water. In 

 offering some facts to disprove this assumption, the sagacity of these 

 animals will be more or less illustrated. A gentleman, on two occasions, 

 watched alligators when catching sunfish, which were swimming in 

 shoals, in shallow water. The alligator placed his long body at a suit- 

 able distance from the shore. As soon as the fish came between him 

 and the land, he curved his body, so that they could not pass ; the tail 

 was moored on land ; the mouth was opened under water, and brought 

 so close to the shore, that the fish had no method of escaping, but through 

 the mouth, where they were entrapped. Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult 

 vitare Charyhdim, 



Dr. Lindsay has often observed, in midsummer, when the inundation 

 is subsiding, and swamps, lakes, lagoons, and bayous, are becoming dry 

 or too shoal, for not only alligators, but the fish, that a general migra- 

 tion commences. When thousands of square miles, submerged for 

 several months of the year, are about to become desiccated, these know- 

 ing animals begin to travel. When the water subsides rapidly, there 

 are currents through narrow channels, from the higher to the lower 

 basins and streams, to which the alligators repair, in great numbers, 

 and turn their heads up stream. The large buffalo, and still larger 

 cat-fish,* with many other fishes of the lower Mississippi, in their migra- 

 , tions,f through these straits, are thus devoured ; often, very few- escape. 



* Family siluridxE ; genus pimelodus. Some of these siliirians, attain a co- 

 lossal size, in Louisiana. 



t " The action of beasts," says a French writer, (M. Bayle,) " are among 

 the profoundest mysteries upon which human reason can dwell ; and, that so 

 few people should perceive this, is to me a matter of surprize." Yet, like the 



freat Primate, they sometimes commit mistakes ; even in late years, alligators 

 ave come into New Orleans — an error loci — fatal to the wanderer, as he never 

 returns again to his reedy, plashy den. Poets and philosophers tell us, that 

 man is governed by reason, but when they speak of brutes, they ascribe all their 

 actions to instinct. I will not stop to examine what is gained by using that 

 convenient word ; but will simply say, that inspiration or Diiine afflation would 

 ^eem much better to accord vvith their descriptions and explanations as usually 



