ALLIGATORS I HAVE KNOWN 



485 



ally contained black hass to see if I 

 could not shoot one for supper. While 

 watching the holes, I saw the head of 

 a large alligator about forty yards away, 

 but it went under before I could shoot. 

 Wading near to the place where it had 

 gone down, I stopped and awaited de- 

 velopments. In a few minutes I saw 

 the gator crawling along the bottom 

 only a few yards away, following the 

 slightly deeper water of what had l^een 

 the bed of a drainage ditch in years gone 

 by. Coming opposite where I stood, he 

 turned deliberately in my direction un- 

 til he was headed directly toward me. 

 Whether he saw me and took me for a 

 possible protecting stump, or whether 

 his direct move toward my feet was 

 accidental, I do not know. But I do 

 know that a Mauser bullet stopped his 

 career about three feet from my legs. 

 He was nine and one half feet long, and 

 of the broad- jawed, heavily built type. 

 In this connection I may say that the 

 second largest I ever collected was of 

 the comparatively narrow-jawed, slen- 

 derly built, racing type, a very differ- 

 ent looking animal from this rugged old 

 mossback. 



When alligators were known to me 

 only through the printed and illus- 

 trated page, I had the idea that they 

 were usually seen lying sound asleep on 

 the bank or on a log over the water. 

 This does not hold with our North 

 Carolina alligators, however. I have 

 seen a great many in the last ten years 

 but, apart from many half-views of a 

 sliding form that disappeared with a 

 splash coincident with the sight, I have 

 seen only one out of the water that gave 

 me a chance to gaze at it for more than 

 a fraction of a second. This specimen 

 was eight feet four inches in length, as 

 I ascertained later in the day, and I 

 have several articles of outdoor equip- 

 ment made from his hide. One soon 

 learns, however, to estimate size fairly, 

 well from a profile view of the head. 

 The natives of any part of our alligator 

 country almost always can tell of an 



individual, "using" up a certain creek, 

 that thev know will m(>asure fourteen or 



AlliKHtors always May alioiit tlio waters near 

 tliis colony of cormorants. Tliese birds — in this the 

 only colony north of Florida — have nested along 

 tlie shores of Great Lake for many years. Alli- 

 gators often catch and swallow the half-grown 

 birds as they swim about under tlie cypresses 



