THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 49 



waiting for him. As the swimming hog reached the mid- 

 dle of the stream the alligator, which had been hidden by 

 the overhanging vegetation of the opposite bank, swam out 

 with great speed, caught the hog at the shoulder, threw its 

 tail almost completely out of the water and with a tremen- 

 dous sweep to one side threw all four of the hog's legs 

 clear above the water as it rolled over, and that was the last 

 time I saw the hog alive. The next day its mutilated car- 

 cass came to the surface with all of its stomach torn out and 

 one hind leg completely torn off. I had one of my men watch 

 for this alligator, and on the third day he sighted it ; got a 

 shot and killed it. It was a very old alligator, its age being 

 clearly shown by its badly worn teeth and the roughness of 

 its jaws. It measured eleven feet seven inches with what 

 was considered two feet to two and a half feet of its tail 

 missing, and measured seventy-eight inches around the 

 largest part of its body. 



On another occasion a friend of mine on Bayou Ver- 

 milion saw an alligator catch a fat hog that was wallowing 

 in shallow water on the edge of the bayou. This hog 

 weighed approximately four hundred pounds, and it was 

 terribly mutilated by the alligator, but not completely killed, 

 as my friend got in a lucky shot which badly wounded the 

 alligator, causing it to turn the hog loose. It was neces- 

 sary to butcher the hog in order to save the meat, as it 

 would have died from the wounds. The wounded alligator 

 crawled out on the bank and was killed the next day. It 

 measured a little more than ten feet in length. 



In 1895, I was, early in April, shooting Jacksnipe on the 

 cattle range west of Avery Island, and witnessed the killing 

 of a three year old cow by an alligator. A number of cat- 

 tle-men were driving a herd of cattle from the high range 

 along the coast to a high range inland. In order to get 

 from one range to the other the cattle had to cross a low 

 marsh four miles wide. From many years of using the 

 same trail a water-road had been plowed out by the ani- 



