THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 31 



spend the Winter. I have seen several of these open dens, 

 and have fallen in a couple of them. I was hunting ducks 

 about twenty years ago in what are known as the Deep 

 Bayou marshes in South Central Vermilion Parish. These 

 lands at that time belonged to the late Paul J. Rainey and 

 to me. I had my decoys on Deep Lake, but the afternoon 

 was warm and there was no wind, with but few birds moving 

 my way. I noticed quite a steady flight of ducks in small 

 bands lighting in the marsh about a quarter of a mile east of 

 me, so I left my boat and walked across the marsh to find out 

 what the ducks were doing. When I got near the spot at 

 which they were lighting, I saw there were a great number 

 of ducks in two small round ponds, each about two hundred 

 feet across and divided from each other by a narrow strip 

 of grass not more than twenty feet wide. I flushed the 

 ducks without firing my gun, so as to frighten them as little 

 as possible, as I knew, if not frightened, they would go to 

 one of the large ponds in the vicinity and come back to these 

 ponds in small flocks, affording splendid shooting. At a 

 glance I saw the best place to stand for the incoming birds 

 would be on the strip of grass between the two ponds. In 

 order to get to it, I had either to walk around the nearest 

 pond or wade across. As I knew all the ponds in this marsh 

 were hard bottom and shallow, I started wading. The water 

 was less than knee deep and the going good until I got al- 

 most half way across, then the bottom began to suddenly get 

 soft, but thinking it was only a pot hole, I kept on, and in a 

 few steps more was in slush up to my armpits. As I made 

 another step I felt my foot strike something solid, and think- 

 ing it was the opposite side of the hole, raised my foot until 

 I got something hard underneath and heaved myself up. I 

 had just thought how nice it was to get out of the slush, 

 when it seemed as if an earthquake had struck me, and my 

 feet lost the bottom, the mud and water around me began 

 to boil, I got a hard blow on one leg below the knee which 

 I afterwards found was cut to the bone, and I was thrown 



