Alligator-Hunting at the Enchanted Lake. 337 



maintained it would be advisable to take a dog with us, whose 

 howl would have aroused the alligators and brought them 

 up to the surface in hope as of prey. Indeed people fre- 

 quently sacrifice dogs in order to entice these rapacious 

 monsters from their haunts for the purpose of hunting them. 



If however disappointed in this spectacle, we were recom- 

 pensed by another not less peculiar. For hardly had a shot 

 been fired at one of the water-fowls which were skimming to 

 and fro over the lake, than at once tree and thicket seemed 

 filled with life. Birds of all kinds, screaming and whirring, 

 fluttered about or daslied wildly against each other on every 

 side. Thousands that had been sitting on the beach con- 

 cealed in the deep shade, wood-pigeons and legions of gigan- 

 tic bats, which had been suddenly friglitened out of their 

 listless repose, now flew about directly before the murderous 

 fowling-pieces. The singular-looking fruits which seemed 

 to be so strangely dependent from the trees, were transformed 

 into Kalong bats [Pteropus edulis), and flew about in immense 

 flocks that obscured the light of day, directly over our heads, 

 hastily seeking a shelter in the forest, which should hide 

 them from the gaze of the sportsmen. Probably we should 

 have brought down some of these singular animals, had 

 not our fowling-pieces, owing to the incessant pour of rain, 

 got so thoroughly out of order that we had to content our- 



once killed an alligator, whose head alone weighed 250 lbs., while the body was 

 10 feet in circumference ! It lay buried in the sluice at the mouth of a river, and 

 it proved so difficult to get it brought to land and cut up, that only the head was 

 severed by way of trophy, and brought home to his house. 



VOL. II. Z 



