36 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



rated from the lowlands by timbered ridges exceeding one 

 hundred feet in height. In every one of these ponds, every 

 Summer, alligators appear and remain for a short time, as 

 suits their pleasure, and as suddenly disappear. I have 

 frequently found them traveling long distances from water, 

 both on the prairies and in the wooded hills. My house 

 is located on a hill one hundred and fifty feet above tide 

 level, and a little more than one-half a mile from the 

 marshes which lie to the west. Directly east of my house, 

 about one-quarter of a mile, is a considerable artificial 

 pond that was first dammed in 1892. I have a number of 

 times found alligators in my grounds within a hundred feet 

 of the house on their way from the marshes to this pond. 

 There are in this pond a number of alligators that are in 

 sight every day of the summer. One is an especially heavy 

 male that is upwards of ten feet in length. This alligator 

 left the pond during the last days of May, 1933, and re- 

 turned to the pond August sixth. His trail was seen going 

 out, and his trail was seen returning, as both times he 

 passed directly through my flower garden. Why he made 

 this journey to the marshes and back again is a mystery, 

 for the pond teems with all kinds of food that alligators 

 love, and the mating season had about passed when he went 

 out. 



In one of the other ponds on the place was a very large 

 male alligator that measured between eleven and twelve 

 feet, who came into the pond the year after it was built 

 from at least a mile and a half away, as there is no bayou 

 or swamp where he could have lived in a less distance. This 

 alligator built a den under the bank of this pond and spent 

 the Winter there. The next Spring he left the pond in 

 April and went to the swamp to the east, his trail being 

 plainly seen. He returned in early October, wintered in 

 his den, left the pond again about the middle of the next 

 April and continued going and coming to and from the pond 

 for five or six years, always going out in April and coming 



