ALLIGATORS OF LOUISIANA AND TEXAS. 273 



a week or so in the neighbourhood. Accordingly, 

 the very next day, Mr. Salters (that was his name) 

 and myself made our preparations, and started on 

 our adventures. 



It was evening when we reached a creek of the 

 Mississippi, in which we could see myriads of fish 

 playing about. Our dogs flushed plenty of water- 

 fowl, which fell to our repeated shots, when suddenly 

 one of them began to howl, and putting his tail 

 between his legs, made away from the water as fast 

 as he could. On this, my companion pointed out to 

 me with his gun an enormous alligator crouched 

 down into the mud, and watching us with lack-lustre 

 eyes. Without exchanging a word, we both fired 

 our double-barrels, and there^ for the first time, laid 

 this new species of game dead before me, with his 

 jaws gaping, and spreading around a faint odour of 

 musk. A negro, who attended us as porter, car- 

 ried him down to the canoe, and his skia even now 

 adorns the walls of a sugar-bakery belonging to a 

 rich planter on the Mississippi, to whom my friend 

 and myself presented it. 



Next day, when Mr. Salters and myself were on one 

 of the lagoons of the E-ed River, we were witnesses 

 of a tremendous battle between a female alligator 

 and a large eagle. The alligator was defending its 

 young from the bird of prey, and the spectacle was 

 most artistic, as the mother did her best to defend 

 her young, which crouched under her belly until 



