86 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



such times, although flies and mosquitoes swarm around 

 them. I believe the reason they open their mouths is to let 

 the leeches and small water lice which frequently attach 

 themselves inside of their mouths along the tongue to have 

 a chance to dry out in the hot sunlight, which perhaps would 

 rid them of these pests. I can think of no other reason. 

 I have never seen an alligator swim with its mouth open 

 or partly open. 



During the early years after the establishment of the 

 wild life refuges in Louisiana; that is, the Sage Wild Life 

 Refuge, Marsh Island; the Grande Cheniere Tract which 

 is the Rockefeller Foundation Wild Life Refuge; and the 

 Bayou Ferman Tract which is the Ward-Mcllhenny Wild 

 Life Refuge; a total of one hundred and seventy-four thou- 

 sand acres, there was no killing of alligators allowed cover- 

 ing a period of four years. During that time the alligators 

 increased enormously, and the muskrat trappers claimed 

 that they were destroying great numbers of muskrats. Dur- 

 ing the Summer of 1916, it was decided to reduce the alli- 

 gators on these refuges, and something over one hundred 

 men were given permits to hunt alligators on them. The 

 total kill during that Summer on these three wild refuges 

 was between eighty-eight thousand and eighty-nine thousand 

 alligators. This is illustrative of how rapidly alligators will 

 increase if left alone. 



Mother alligators show the greatest solicitude for their 

 young, both while they are undeveloped in the egg, and 

 after they are hatched. Before alligators had become, by 

 persecution, so very shy of human beings, the mother alli- 

 gator invariably protected its nest from attack, and it was 

 dangerous for anyone to molest one. I have been witness 

 to very many attacks by alligators on persons who were 

 opening their nests. At present, I believe, generally speak- 

 ing, alligators are too shy and too much afraid of human 

 beings to attack even if their nests are disturbed. In the 

 few isolated places where they have not been disturbed they 



