144 Oft the Torpid State of the North- Jmerican Alligdtpr, 



Mr. Bossu, a French writer, after telling us that these 

 animals are iiumerous in the Red River, one of the western 

 branches of the Mississippi, says " they are torpid during 

 tiie cold weather, and lie in the mud with their mouths open, 

 into which the iish enter as into a funnel, and neither ad- 

 vance nor go back. The Indians then get upon their backs, 

 and kill them, by striking their heads with hatchets, and 

 tiiis is a kind of diversion for them*." 



Dr. Foster, the translator of the work, observes in the 

 preceding passage, " that the circumstance of the alligator's 

 being torpid during winter is quite new, and very remark- 

 able for natural historv.'* It seems (he adds) almost all the 

 class of animals called an/ph/bia, by Dr. Linnasus, when 

 found in cold climates grow torpid during winter. 



In addition to the authority of Mr. Bossu, I may here 

 mention the following fact, which was commimicated to 

 me about the year 1 783, by a Mr. Graham, at that time a 

 x-ery intelligciit student of medicine in the University of 

 Pcnnsvlvauia. 



" The alligator, having previously swallowed a number of 

 pine-knots, retires to his hole, where he remains in a torpid 

 state during the severity of the winter. If killed at this 

 season, these knots are found highly polished by their tritu- 

 ration one against the other in the animal's stomach, as I 

 have more than once heard from men of undoubted veracity, 

 who had been concerned in the fact. Indeed this is sO 

 notorious in those parts in which these creatures abound, 

 ihat tlie digestion of the alligator's stomacli is proverbial 

 amongst t'ne multitude, who deride its insipidity in the 

 choice of such food, though, I presume, this it does in- 

 stinctively, for some purpose unaccounted for by natu- 

 ralists; and which, ncrhaps, is beyond the limits of human 

 ken." 



The fact related bv Mr. Graham, relates to the alligator 

 of the CaroHnas, in which parts of the United States this 

 animal is very common. By another gentleman I have been 

 informed, that the pine-knots which the alligators swallow 

 are generally such as are verv abundant in turpentine. I 

 have also been assured, by my friend Mr. William Bartram, 

 that he has seen a brick-bat which was taken out of the 

 stomach of an alliirator, and that it was worn quite round. 



Mr. Lawson says, that the alligator is not seen to the 

 north of North -Carolina. They are very common at Cape- 

 Fear in latitude 34**. One twelve feet in length has been 



• Travels through that Part of North America forracrly called Louisiana. 

 Ep^Ush ua&tlation, vol. i. p. 3*37. London 1771. 



seejd 



