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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



hook for bait. He got the cormorant 

 every time, stripping the hook clean of 

 both bait and lashing, and bending in 

 the point of the heavy shark hook be- 

 tween his powerful jaws until it was 

 useless. He did this to two hooks, in 

 different years, in one instance breaking 

 off the point at the barb. At times I 

 shot at him out in the lake, but the wa- 

 ter was always rough enough to keep the 

 boat rocking a little, and never a bullet 

 went home. I did not give him up, but 

 circumstances finally made his home 

 waters unavailable to me. 



"Will an alligator ever attack a 

 man?" is the most frequent first ques- 

 tion of the uninitiated on reaching the 

 alligator country. The usual answer 

 from those who know is "Never!" In 

 general, the answer seems to be correct. 

 I have, however, mended a canoe that 

 had— while occupied— a hole torn in it 

 by a' gator's jaws, I have been bitten by 

 a five-and-a-half-footer, and almost bit- 

 ten by one of seven or eight feet. 



The injury to the canoe came about 

 in this way : Two young men were pad- 

 dling the boat along a narrow ditch 

 through the marsh, when one of the 

 paddles struck a gator either swimming 

 or lying dormant on the bottom. In- 

 stantly the animal reached up with open 

 jaws, shut down on the curved body of 

 the boat near the water line about four 

 feet aft of the stem, and ripped the can- 

 vas and planking loose over a space 

 about fifteen inches across. The canoe 

 was overturned and the occupants 

 thrown out. One of them found a pole 

 on the marsh, and with that he kept the 

 alligator occupied while his companion 

 ran back to the camp for a rifle. They 

 "collected" the specimen, which proved 

 to be a large one ten feet seven inches 

 in length. They buried the skull near 

 the camp, where I dug it up a couple 

 of months later, bringing it back with 

 me as a specimen for the Museum. 

 This is the largest measured specimen 

 I know of from North Carolina waters 

 in recent vears. 



Lake Ellis is a body of very shallow 

 water, about two miles in diameter. It 

 is largely marsh, and the open water is 

 thickly dotted with small islands, most 

 of them measuring from ten to twenty 

 feet across. Under the banks of many 

 of these islands the alligators have their 

 burrows, and it is an interesting — and 

 sometimes exciting— business to get 

 them out. A long pole, with a stout 

 steel hook at one end, is the main imple- 

 ment needed, although a spade is often 

 handy if digging has to be resorted to. 

 Naturally, one carries a rifle in addi- 

 tion for the coup de grace. 



Sometimes a gator can be teased to a 

 condition of rage that impels it not only 

 to bite the pole but also to hold on to it 

 until the aniinars head is drawn clear 

 of tlio water. On one occasion I had 

 found an owner of one of these burrows 

 at liome (one can often tell if the bur- 

 row is occuj)icd by the condition of the 

 water and excavated earth at the en- 

 trance) and had teased liim until the 

 pole was badly chewed. Then, the bur- 

 row being unusually large, I lost touch 

 with the aninuil. I was kneeling in the 

 water and liad the eleven font pole in 

 the l)urro\v to its full length, my arm 

 also being inside the mouth of the hole 

 almost up to my shoulder. About that 

 time something happened ! The gator 

 had turned around and had slipped past 

 the end of the pole on his way to the 

 entrance when his snout suddenly 

 grazed my hand. Instantly he grabbed 

 it, and shut down hard, one of the sharp 

 canine teeth penetrating a knuckle 

 joint. Luckily for me he did not hold 

 on, and I got my hand back to safety 

 in short order. The slight wound 

 amounted to nothing, although it 

 caused the most excruciating pain f:)r a 

 few minutes. The incident confirmed 

 me, however, in my desire to secure that 

 specimen — which I did just as soon as 

 the pain in my hand abated. He was 

 about five and one half feet long, w4th 

 exceptionally sharp teeth. 



Experience shows that an alligator. 



