THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 99 



old one, after crawling a couple of times around her nest 

 and finding all well, went back to the water at the end of 

 the path; keeping in sight of the nest. I watched her all 

 day, but she did not again go to the nest. (I may state 

 here that a female alligator guards her nest against ene- 

 mies; keeping constantly near it to protect it from de- 

 struction by 'coons, opossums, bears and hogs; all these 

 animals eat alligator eggs if they get the chance. When 

 the young begin hatching, they make the fact known to 

 their mother by a shrill, grunting sound. The old alligator 

 then removes with her mouth the packed-down material 

 covering the hatching little ones, so that they can crawl out 

 of the nest and join her. If she did not open the nest, the 

 young would be held prisoners by the tightly packed mate- 

 rial over them, and eventually starve to death. I have 

 opened alligators' nests, from five to seven months after the 

 young had hatched, and found the little alligators alive, 

 but unable to get through the nest-material surrounding 

 them. The female alligators to whom these nests belonged 

 had probably been killed by hide-hunters. The young after 

 hatching stay with their mother until the next Spring.) 



Next morning, August 22, I was at the nest very early 

 and found the mother had bitten off the top material, for 

 about ten inches deep, and thrown it to the side of the nest 

 away from the water. The young could be heard giving 

 their baby call of u umph-umph-umph," which sound can be 

 exactly imitated by the human voice if the syllable is pro- 

 nounced with the mouth closed and in a high key. Know- 

 ing that as soon as the full heat of the day came, the young 

 would leave the nest, and wishing to measure, weigh and 

 mark them, I got one of my men, a basket, rope, tape-line 

 and postal scales, and was back at the nest in a very short 

 time. As soon as we went up to the nest the mother came 

 at us with mouth open, hissing loudly. I dropped a noose 

 over her head, tied her to a willow tree on the edge of the 

 water, where after a few tugs and rolls she became quiet, 



