THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



back in early October and spending the Winter in the den 

 he had dug in the hard ground under the bank of the pond. 

 One Fall he failed to come back, and he has never been 

 seen since, and as I did not hear his voice, I supposed he 

 wandered into some of the streams and was killed by a hide- 

 hunter. 



Rather an amusing thing happened on one occasion when 

 quite a number of Bohemian immigrants who had newly 

 arrived at New Orleans came to my place to work. Eight 

 or ten of the men were sent out to the corn fields to break 

 corn in the early Fall. They returned a few minutes after 

 getting to the field, very much excited, gesticulating, and 

 all talking at once. As their interpreter was not around, 

 they were brought to me, and I tried to find out what the 

 trouble was. None of them could speak a word of Eng- 

 lish, but all of them tried to show by pantomine what was 

 causing the excitement. They would make short jumps, 

 puff themselves up, and blow a hissing sound through their 

 mouths. I thought they had seen a snake, until one of the 

 men lay down on the ground on his stomach, swelled him- 

 self up as much as he could, stretched his two arms full 

 length in front, putting one on top of the other, then open- 

 ing them from the hand to the elbow, made at the same time 

 a loud hissing sound, and tried to wiggle along the ground. 

 The imitation was so good, that I understood at once that 

 they had seen an alligator. Accompanying them to the 

 field, they showed me with a great exhibition of fear where 

 the terrible thing they had tried to describe had been. I 

 could see the trail of a large alligator, and following it for 

 a few hundred feet found it in the corn rows, but as it was 

 rather a small one only about ten feet long, I did not 

 molest it, and let it go on about its business. 



Old alligators usually inhabit the same den year after 

 year, enlarging it from time to time until it becomes quite 

 a labyrinth under the ground. They retire to these dens 

 in October and invariably spend the entire Winter in them 



