26 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



retire on the approach of danger, and in which they spend 

 the cold winter months. These dens are usually kept filled 

 with water by the summer rains after the spring freshet 

 recedes, or are dug to the water table which is never more 

 than a few feet below the surface in the swamps and 

 marshes. I have found these 'gator holes in the swamps, 

 miles away from permanent water, with their occupants liv- 

 ing apparently normal lives. I have found inhabiated 

 alligator holes with openings not more than four feet 

 across, but extending a considerable distance underground, 

 a long way from any stream, in the great, wet coastal 

 plains of Southwest Louisiana. Such holes when made in 

 solid marsh or swamp would always have piled to one side 

 a mound of silty clay, which must have been deposited in 

 its position by the alligator's carrying it in its mouth, as 

 such holes were too small and the ground too hard to allow 

 the earth's having been moved by sweeping it from the hole 

 by the alligator, with its tail the usual procedure when 

 dens are dug in soft ground. 



During the Winter alligators are inactive and spend 

 about five months, from early October to late March, in 

 holes or dens which they have made and into which they re- 

 tire during the cold weather. These dens may be under the 

 bank of some stream or lake, or in a swamp or marsh at a 

 considerable distance from open water. Their dens are al- 

 ways made in wet land or under a bank, bordering water, 

 and, except in severest drought, are filled with water. As a 

 rule, the same den is occupied by the same alligator during 

 cold weather as long as it lives. I have known instances 

 where large, old alligators who had their dens at small ponds 

 in the marsh never to leave these ponds, relying for food on 

 such animals, birds and reptiles as would come to the hole 

 for water, or in search of food. Most alligators, however, 

 spend only the cold weather at these dens; leaving them for 

 some stream or other open water as soon as Summer be- 



