THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 89 



the top material that may have been roughed by the action 

 of the raindrops this is in order to hold in the heat of the 

 decaying vegetable matter surrounding the eggs. Should 

 there be a period of two or three days or more without rain, 

 the old alligator crawls over the nest and evacuates a con- 

 siderable amount of water on top of the nest so as to keep 

 the nest-material wet and the eggs damp. This wetting 

 down is done with great regularity each day or night dur- 

 ing periods of drought. 



There is considerable variation in the number of eggs 

 laid by an alligator. Of the hundreds of nests I have 

 opened, twenty-nine is the smallest number of eggs found; 

 sixty-eight the largest. My chief warden, Lionel LeBlanc, 

 reports opening an alligator's nest in the marshes just back 

 of Cheniere au Tigre in Vermilion Parish several years 

 ago that contained eighty-eight eggs. He is very positive 

 in his statement that he counted these eggs personally, and 

 as they were all approximately the same size, he is sure 

 they were the clutch of one alligator. 



Alligators build their nests and lay their eggs from the 

 twentieth of May to the twenty-fifth of June. I have never 

 found a nest with freshly laid eggs in it earlier than May 

 twentieth, nor later than June twenty-fifth. The first two 

 weeks of June would cover the bulk of the laying season. 



It is generally supposed by those that have written on 

 the alligator, that the period of incubation of alligator eggs 

 is eight weeks. The normal incubation period is nine weeks. 

 I have tested this time and again with always the same re- 

 sults, within one or two days; sometimes one day less, some- 

 times two days more. 



The nests of alligators are robbed for their eggs by 

 'coons, opossums, bears, hogs, and, of course, man. The 

 first four named, eat the eggs, but I have never known alli- 

 gator eggs to be used by humans for food, although there 

 is no reason why they should not be as palatable as turtle 

 eggs. 



