THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 83 



would go into the marsh with his partner, armed with a pole 

 and hook for pulling alligators out of their holes, and, un- 

 less the alligator was an unusually large one, Alpha would 

 never condescend to use the pole; that is, providing the 

 alligator was not too far back in its den. He would go in 

 to the hole quietly, feeling with his feet and hands until he 

 located the alligator, and would then slowly slip his hand 

 along the alligator's body until he came to its head, and 

 getting his hand under its head, would feel along until he 

 located the nose, then grasping it by the nose, would 

 pull it to him and out of the hole, with a series of quick 

 jerks. As soon as the alligator was in shallow water on 

 the edge of the bank, he would kill it with his hand axe. 

 Alpha has caught hundreds of alligators in this manner, 

 and has never been bitten. 



Alligators rarely attack human beings, and during my 

 long life among them, I have only twice suffered unprovoked 

 attacks by them, and I am not too sure that one of these 

 attacks was not a provoked attack, but I was too young and 

 too frightened to know whether the attacking alligator was 

 a female protecting its nest or whether the attack was made 

 without cause. The incident was : My cousin, John Avery, 

 and I were paddling a small pirogue through a swampy 

 pond on Avery Island known as Willow Pond, when sud- 

 denly an alligator that seemed very large to us, rushed at us 

 from the side, struck the rickety little boat and turned it 

 over. Both of us scrambled off through the shallow water 

 and willow trees as fast as we could, but the alligator showed 

 no desire to follow. This makes me think that it was an 

 old female protecting her nest. 



The other attack was, I know, without cause. I had been 

 shooting Jacksnipe in the marshes west of Avery Island and 

 was paddling my pirogue down a deep, very narrow bayou, 

 in the last week of March. I had seen a number of alli- 

 gators, but paid no attention to them, when in a compara- 

 tively straight reach of the bayou I saw a very large alii- 



