48 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



narrow, shallow, swampy pond early in April, and had one 

 of my retrievers with me. She swam across the pond after 

 a wounded duck, and was pulled under the water by an eight 

 to nine foot alligator. The pond had never at that time 

 been visited by aligator hunters and the place swarmed with 

 the reptiles. As it was one of my favorite places to hunt 

 ducks, I re-visited it the day after my retriever was drowned ; 

 took a twenty-two rifle, sat on a log on the central edge of 

 one side of this pond, and killed more than eighty alligators 

 in a few hours, by calling them to me. At one time there 

 were more than thirty of these reptiles within one hundred 

 feet of me, and those not shot at, paid not the slightest at- 

 tention to the crack of the rifle. 



The usual food of alligators from five to ten feet in 

 length is fish of various kinds (preferably garfish), snakes, 

 turtles and any kind of bird that comes in range of their 

 jaws, and any kind of small mammal that they can catch. 

 Muskrats, rabbits, coots, rails, duck, garfish, snakes and 

 turtles form the bulk of the food of the larger size alli- 

 gators. In procuring their food they lie in wait on the edge 

 of some stream or at a water hole, and anything swimming 

 near them is quickly caught by swift side swings of the head 

 with the jaws half opened. If they see an animal swim- 

 ming, they catch it with a remarkable burst of speed that is 

 very much swifter than can be made by any mammal in 

 water. 



I have seen alligators catch various animals in water, es- 

 pecially rabbits and muskrats, and on a number of occa- 

 sions, I have seen them catch hogs and once a 'coon. Each 

 time they approached the swimming animal with a dash of 

 wonderful speed, and on grasping it in their jaws imme- 

 diately sank under the water. On one occasion I saw a 

 duroc boar hog that weighed not less than five hundred 

 pounds caught by a large alligator while the hog was swim- 

 ming across a stream about eighty feet wide. The hog had 

 a regular crossing place at this point, and the alligator was 



