THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 91 



vers they at once mated. Mating was accomplished in the 

 water by the male mounting the back of the female, taking 

 her firmly around the body with front and back feet; the 

 female turned a little to one side raised her tail turning it 

 sidewise, the male's tail being turned sidewise and un- 

 der her; the mating act was accomplished. Copulation oc- 

 curred often during the next three days, each act lasting 

 between ten to fifteen minutes. Then the pair showing 

 no further interest in each other, the female was put back 

 in her pen and the door closed. 



On June 3, a couple of planks between the female's pen 

 and the outside pond were taken off and she was allowed to 

 go free. 



The pond, on the edge of which my alligator pens are 

 built, is an artificial one, about five hundred feet from my 

 house, made by damming the outlet to a little valley. It 

 contains about thirty-five acres of water, varying in depth 

 from a few inches to ten feet, in and over which there is a 

 thick growth of swamp-loving trees and shrubs and much 

 saw grass, lotus and other water-growing plants. It is in 

 this pond, "Bird City," established many years ago, that 

 I have my Egret and Heron colony, and a large variety of 

 other water and marsh-loving birds nest here. The water 

 of the pond teems with fish, turtles and snakes, and 

 along its banks are numerous muskrat nests. This pond is 

 an ideal alligator home, as everything needed by these great 

 reptiles is there in abundance. 



Every morning after the female's release, I had a man 

 go around the pond to locate the place where she would 

 make her nest. On June 19, it was reported to me that 

 an alligator was clearing a place on the bank, and I at once 

 went to investigate. I found the liberated female busily at 

 work in a brier patch on the north side of the pond, about 

 thirty feet back from the water on high dry ground. She 

 had mashed a road down through the briers and small 

 bushes by crawling over them from the water's edge to the 



