SIR HANS SLOANE. 37 



** There was an alligator that used to do abun- 

 dance of mischief to the people's cattle in the 

 neighbourhood, having his regular course to look 

 for prey. One of the inhabitants there, as I was 

 told, tied a long cord to his bedstead, and to the 

 other end of the cord fastened a piece of wood 

 and a dog, so that the alligator, swallowing the 

 dog and piece of wood, the latter came cross his 

 throat as it was designed, and after pulling his 

 bedstead to the window, and awakening the person 

 in bed, he was caught Alligators love dogs 

 extremely, but prey also on cattle. This alligator 

 was nineteen feet long." 



" I once went to visit Mr Rowe, a sick person, 

 at St Jago de la Vega, in Jamaica, in a morning, 

 and found him more than ordinarily discomposed ; 

 for that the ants, by eating in the night some of 

 the joints of his bedstead, his bed of a sudden 

 had fallen to the ground." 



Mr Knapp, in his elegant and highly interesting 

 " Journal of a Naturalist,"* has remarked how 

 slowly the potato was received into England as 

 an article of food, and that it was entirely con- 

 fined to the use of the lower classes for many 

 years, f An observation of Sloane's (writing so 



* Page 33. 



t From an anecdote in the Retrospective Review, vol. 

 xi. p. 331, it appears that about seventy years ago, they 

 were beginning to be appreciated as a delicacy in the 

 neighbourhood of London. A lady then living, (1825,) 



