34 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



rous sight. Fortunately, I had a large knife in my pocket 

 with which I could scrape him off, and as his gun and car- 

 tridges were dry, we continued our hunt, but he was a very 

 nervous individual, and I could not get him to cross the 

 bayou later in order to get to the boat; so he followed its 

 bank to the main bayou and I crossed, got the boat, and 

 joined him. This alligator was completely numbed by the 

 cold, and was too far under water for the light load of bird- 

 shot to do it any damage. 



For many years I have kept several unusually large 

 alligators in pens, built on the edge of the pond which 

 covers most of my Bird City (egret colony) only a few 

 hundred feet from my house. In one pen about thirty feet 

 square I kept a big fellow almost twelve feet long who, on 

 account of his age and size, I called Grandpa. Under 

 date of September 6, 1924, I find the following entry in 

 my alligator notes : 



"I have been much interested in watching Grandpa 

 deepen and enlarge his winter quarters. The water in the 

 pond is very low, as we have had no rain for several 

 months, and the old boy has not had enough water to cover 

 his back for some days. Yesterday he commenced deepen- 

 ing and enlarging his den, and deepening the hole in front 

 of it. He began by putting his head and shoulders in his 

 den and sweeping with powerful side strokes of his tail, all 

 the soft material from the bottom in front of it. The soft 

 mud was only about three inches deep, and when that was 

 out of the way, his back was not yet covered with water. 

 He then felt the place he wanted to deepen over, by push- 

 ing his nose hard over every part of it. He then lined up 

 with the opening of his den where it goes under the bank, 

 and began scratching up the bottom with his hind feet. In 

 order to hold himself in position for digging with his hind 

 feet, he braced his head and front feet on the bottom, push- 

 ing back hard, at the same time bringing up one hind foot 

 after the other, driving them back slowly, and with all his 



