328 LEAVES FKOM THE 



water.* When, after the intense heats of summer, the 

 cold season approaches, the alligators bury themselves in 

 the mud of some stagnant pool, and there remain con- 

 cealed and comfortable, in the sort of death-in-life state 

 of hybernation, till the genial breath of spring calls them 

 again into active existence. Then, and as the summer 

 advances, multitudes may be seen in the unfrequented 

 waters of South America, their huge flat heads floating 

 among the luxuriant nymphgese — such as Queen Vic- 

 toria's own water-lily, and other aquatic plants, with 

 which the surface is, as it were, carpeted, — or basking 

 on the sunny banks in a dozing state, when the day is 

 at the hottest. They probably have a feathered at- 

 tendant, as the true crocodiles have, for a bird has been 

 seen quietly perched on an alligator's snout. 



Like the poacher, their principal time of fishing is in 

 the night, when they assemble in large companies, drive 

 the fish before them, with loud bellowings that may be 

 heard a mile off, into some retired creek, and take up a 

 position at the mouth of it. Then the work of destruc- 

 tion begins. Diving under the crowded shoal, the alli- 

 gators seize the prey, not unfrequently using their tails 

 to sweep the terrified fish, which attempt to escape, to- 

 wards their gaping mouths, while the shores resound 

 with the clanking of their jaws. Some have supposed 

 that the musky secretion of the glands beneath the 



* But note. Sir Hans Sloane, in his Jamaica, speaking of the 

 shoals between Port Royal and Passage Fort, and of the corals, 

 starfishes, and echini, which there abound, says that ' allegators 

 are often drawn on shoar in the sewwe-nets by the fishermen, whose 

 nets are generally broken by them ;' and he speaks of one which 

 was afterwards taken, as stated at p. 331 of this book, that used to 

 do abundance of mischief to the people's cattle ' in the neighbour- 

 hood of this bay, having his regular courses to look for prey.' 

 And Sloane further remarks, that * They are very common on the 

 coasts and deep rivers of Jamaica.' Catesby, too, states, that they 

 frequent salt rivers near the sea, as well as streams of fresh water, 

 fresh and salt lakes. 



