102 THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 



above the water, and the last foot and one-half of her tail 

 kept rapidly moving from side to side. I kept on slowly 

 towards her, and when about twenty feet from her, she 

 rushed at me through the water with mouth open and with 

 a loud roaring hiss. For about ten feet her approach was 

 very rapid, but her speed quickly slackened and she came to 

 a stop at about six feet from where I stood in water about 

 eighteen inches deep. As I did not move she showed no 

 disposition to attack, but kept puffing herself full of wind 

 and hissing loudly. I kept perfectly still and she gradually 

 quieted down and backed into her den, which I then saw 

 she had dug under a big bunch of saw grass at the far end of 

 the opening. She kept her head sticking out of the hole 

 at the edge of the grass, and as I saw I could not get the 

 young ones by this sort of an approach, I went to the shore, 

 got a skiff, some rope and a man to pole me, and we pushed 

 the boat through the floating grass to the den. As soon as 

 the bow of the skiff got in the open water near her den, she 

 rushed the boat very much as she had rushed me, and 

 grabbing the gunnel in her mouth wrenched off a piece of 

 plank about four inches wide and eight feet long, driving 

 her teeth clear through the almost inch-thick lumber. As 

 I knew, because of her fierceness, I could not get the young 

 while she was at liberty, I dropped a noose of heavy rope 

 over her head, drew her to the stern of the boat; then up 

 until her head was above the boat, with her wide gapping 

 jaws resting on the upper stern plank, and pressing her top 

 jaw down with an oar, caught her two jaws firmly together 

 at the nose with my left hand, and with my right took a 

 couple of half-hitches around her closed jaws, and she was 

 secured and harmless. I then kept quite near the mouth of 

 the den, and after about ten minutes, imitated the mother's 

 assembly call (which is a low, musical umph-umph-umph, 

 given with the mouth closed), at short intervals, and as the 

 young ones came to the surface of the water at the mouth 

 of the den, caught eight of them with my bamboo and wire 



