LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



107 



as yet been found to possess it. The muzzle of 

 the crocodiles is not so wide as that of the alliga- 

 tors or caymans ; and some of the Asiatic species, 

 the gavials* for example, have the jaws elongated 

 into a narrow snout, with a rounded termination, 

 reminding one in some degree of the beak of a 

 gigantic spoonbill armed with teeth. 



The alligators, according to some, derive their 

 name from the Portuguese word lagarto, signify- 

 ing a lizard ; some make it a modification of the 

 Indian word legateer, or alkgater ; and others, 

 again, suppose that it is simply a corruption of the 

 words al lagatore,} the inhabitants of the lake or 

 lagoon for travellers agree generally in stating 

 that the caymans are never found in the rapids, or 

 even in the running part of the stream, but in 

 creeks, lagoons, or back waters. There is this 

 difference, also, between them and the true croco- 

 diles, that whereas the latter frequently descend 

 beyond the brackish water of great rivers, even 

 into the sea the greater species that inhabits the 

 Ganges for example and have been known to 

 swim from island to island where the distance 

 has been considerable, no such migrations have 

 been generally recorded on the pait of the alli- 

 gators, which, it has been said, never quit 

 the fresh water. J When, after the intense heats 

 of summer, the cold season approaches, the alliga- 

 tors bury themselves in the mud of some stagnant 

 pool, and there remain concealed and comfortable, 

 in the sort of death-in-life state of hibernation, till 

 the genial breath of spring calls them again into 

 active life. Then, and as the summer advances, 

 multitudes may be seen in the unfrequented waters 

 of South America, their huge flat heads floating 

 among the luxuriant nymphaea such as Queen 

 Victoria's own water-lily, and other aquatic 

 plants, with which the surface is, as it were, car- 

 peted or basking on the sunny banks in a dozing 

 state, when the day is at the hottest. They 

 probably have a feathered attendant, as the true 

 crocodiles have, for a bird has been seen quietly 

 perched on an alligator's snout. 



Like the poacher, their principal time of fishing 

 is in the night, when they assemble in large com- 

 panies, drive the fish before them, with loud bel- 

 lowings that may be heard a mile off, into some 

 retired creek, and take up a position at the mouth 

 of it. Then the work of destruction begins. 

 Diving under the crowded shoal, the alligators 

 seize the prey, not unfrequently using their tails to 



* More properly, garrhials. 



t Sloane, who writes allagator, allegator, alagarta, and 

 alagartos, derives it from the Spanish alagarta, a lizard. 



t But note. Sir Hans Sloane, in his Jamaica, speak- 

 ing of the shoals between Port Royal and Passage Fort, 

 and of the corals, starfishes, and echini, which there 

 abound, says that " alienators are often drawn on shoar 

 in the senne-nels by the fishermen, whose nets are gener- 

 ally broken by them ;" and he speaks of one which was 

 afterwards taken, as stated at p. 34 of this book, that 

 used to do abundance of mischief to the people's cattle 

 " in the neighborhood of this bay, having his regular 

 courses to look for prey." And Sloane further remarks, 

 that "They are very common on the coasts and deep 

 rivers of Jamaica." Catesby, too, states, that they fre- 

 quent salt rivers near the sea, as well as streams of fresh 

 water, fresh and salt lakes. 



sweep the terrified fish which attempt to escape, 

 towards their gaping mouths, while the shores re- 

 sound with the clanking of their jaws. Some 

 have supposed that the musky secretion of the 

 glands beneath the throat has attraction for the fish, 

 as the anglers of old were used to anoint their baits 

 with perfumed unguents to draw the finny race to 

 their hooks. But, although fish form the principal 

 food of the alligators, they not unfrequently seize 

 on land animals, which, if too large to be swal- 

 lowed whole, they sink "beneath, the bank till it 

 becomes what venison-eaters term rather high, 

 when it is brought out and devoured at leisure on 

 the bank. Some of them have been known to at- 

 tack men while bathing or swimming across rivers ; 

 and there goes a saying, that they prefer the flesh 

 of a negro to any other delicacy. Sonnini, when 

 he notices the belief above referred to, that the 

 Christian bears a charmed life against the croco- 

 dile, while the Mussulman is devoured, states that 

 he has read somewhere that in Western Africa, 

 the reptile not only prefers the negro, but never 

 touches the white Christian. 



Like several fishes, gold and silver fish and the 

 carp for example, the alligators live at their ease 

 in waters of a very high temperature. Bartram 

 found great numbers, both alligators and fish, in a 

 spring near the Mosquito River in Florida, strongly 

 impregnated with vitriol, and nearly at boiling 

 point where it issued from the earth. 



At St. Domingo, M. Ricord had opportunities 

 of witnessing the mode in which reproduction is 

 carried on among the crocodilians of that island. 

 In April and May, he tells us, the female deposits 

 from twenty to twenty-five eggs, more or less, in 

 the sand without much care, and indeed hardly 

 covering them. He met with them occasionally 

 in the lime which the masons had left on the riv- 

 er's bank. According to his reckoning, and if the 

 temperature be sufficiently genial, the young come 

 forth five or six inches in length on the fortieth 

 day. They are hatched without aid, and as they 

 are able to exist without nourishment while extri- 

 cating themselves from the egg, the female is in 

 no haste to bring it to them ; but she leads them 

 towards the water and into the mud, where she 

 disgorges half-digested food for their nourishment. 

 The male, he says, takes no notice of them. 

 They retain for some time the umbilical cicatrice 

 whereby the vitellus was absorbed while they 

 were in the egg.* 



Like the young turtles, many of them are de- 

 stroyed by their numerous enemies in their way to 

 the river, and before they get into deep water. 



* A collector who had taken the contents of one of these 

 nests, brought the eggs to the house where he was living, 

 and put them into his room on the first floor. One day 

 he went out, leaving the door of his room open, and on 

 his return beheld a swarm of young alligators coming 

 down stairs. Another procured a number of these eggs 

 just before he sailed for England, and put them into one 

 of his chests. Towards the end of the voyage he had oc- 

 casion to open the chest where he had stowed away the 

 eggs, and found a legion of these black imps among his 

 shirts and stockings. Some of these young alligators 

 arrived alive and well in this country. 



