40 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



CHAPTER III 



FOOD 



In discussing their food it must be remembered that alli- 

 gators are inactive for fully five months in the year, and as 

 a rule do not take food of any kind during the cold months, 

 from early October to late March. Although they do not 

 hibernate all this time, they keep pretty closely to their 

 dens; coming out to take sun baths, only on bright days 

 when the air is warmer than the water. During the sum- 

 mer months they are heavy feeders, and towards the end 

 of Summer they store in their bodies quantities of fat 

 which sustains them during the cold, inactive months. 

 Occasionally alligators will take food as early as the middle 

 of March, but this is unusual, and the usual time they begin 

 feeding is about the first of April. 



Following Summers that have been exceptionally dry, 

 causing a shortage of food, and therefore a lack of oppor- 

 tunity to store fat for the Winter, alligators will start tak- 

 ing food in early March, if the weather is not too cold, but 

 such early feeding is entirely irregular. There does not 

 seem to be available any data covering the food of alli- 

 gators from a wide portion of their range. Remington 

 Kellog, Techinical Bulletin No. 147, United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, classifies the contents of the 

 stomach of one hundred and fifty-seven alligators, but as 

 one hundred and forty-six of these were taken in the tidal 

 marshes of Louisiana, and the stomach contents would indi- 

 cate from the bayous, it is to be expected that the contents 

 of these stomachs would consist of the life most plentiful 

 in tidal marsh-bayous. If an examination had been made 

 of the food of alligators taken ten or more miles farther 

 inland or above the tide flow or from the small ponds and 



