330 LEAVES FROM THE 



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 whUe they were in 

 the egg* 



Like the young turtles, many of them are destroyed 

 by their numerous enemies in their way to the river, 

 and before they get into deep water. Vultures devour 

 them both in the egg and on their exclusion ; and ra- 

 venous fishes thin their ranks as soon as they reach the 

 element in which those who survive are to pass so much 

 of their existence. 



The flesh of alligators is eaten by the Indians, and 

 I have been assured by those who have partaken of it, 

 that the tail of a young alligator, sliced and treated like 

 veal cutlets, bears no distant resemblance to that dish. 



Of their ravenous and ferocious disposition there can 

 be little doubt, and stories illustrative of it are not un- 

 common. Bontius relates, that a man who had con- 

 ducted a horse to drink was fiercely attacked by an 

 enormous one, and if the latter had not suddenly sprung 

 away, both man and horse would have been in danger of 

 their lives. Acosta records the bravery of an Indian 

 father, whose little son had been seized by an alligator, 

 that plunged with his prey into the depths of the river. 



* 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, lea\ang 

 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 occasion 

 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. 



