THE ALLIGATOR'S LIFE HISTORY 103 



attachment. I was surprised to find the young ones had 

 increased in length from five to six inches in the twenty- 

 nine days since they left their nest, and now measured from 

 thirteen and one-half inches to fourteen and one-half inches. 

 I did not weigh them. 



I had kept four of the young ones, taken the day they 

 hatched, in a pan of water near the kitchen stove at my 

 house, and the largest of these today measured only ten 

 and one-half inches; an increase of only one inch. Clearly 

 showing the young in their natural habitat get more and 

 better nourishment. 



From time to time for several years, or until the marked 

 alligators got too large, I would go into the pond at night 

 in a small boat with a man paddling me, an electric head- 

 light on my hat, and a stiff bamboo pole to the end of 

 which was attached a strong wire slip noose, and catch 

 these young alligators, put them in sacks, and the next day 

 measure and weigh them, then turn them loose in the 

 pond again. This data has been carefully kept during the 

 ten years since the young alligators were hatched, and gives 

 a pretty accurate record of the growth of alligators under 

 normal conditions in the wild. 



In the late Summer of 1927, these alligators having at- 

 tained quite a size were worrying the birds, especially the 

 herons, all night long, and I was frequently awakened by 

 the loud closing slap of their jaws as they snapped at the 

 birds in the low trees, and the outcry of the birds as num- 

 bers of them in the vicinity of the attack took alarm. I 

 then determined to have a lot of these alligators killed, and 

 on August 26, 1927 , had Leonce LeBlanc, one of my men, 

 set a number of quarter-inch lines tied to limbs of trees 

 overhanging the water; to the free end of each was attached 

 a heavy hook baited with a chunk of raw meat, sus- 

 pended about one foot above the water. In two nights he 

 caught twelve of these alligators, and others have been 

 killed since. A record has been kept of the contents of the 



