ALLIGATOR. 195 



digest slowly, eat seldom, and live long without 

 food. Wolves are said to gorge themselves with 

 mud, to supply the want of better food. For the 

 like cause many Alligators swallowstones and other 

 suhstances, to distend and prevent the contrac- 

 tion of their intestines when empty, and not to 

 help digestion, which they seem in no need of. For 

 in the greater numher of many I have opened, 

 nothing has appeared but clumps of lighftvood and 

 pieces of pine tree coal, some of which weighed 

 eight pounds, and were reduced and wore so 

 smooth from their first angular roughness, that 

 they seemed to have remained in them many 

 months. They lay a great number of eggs at one 

 time, in the sandy banks of rivers and lakes, which 

 are hatched by the heat of the sun without further 

 care of the parents. The young, as soon as they 

 are disengaged from their shells, betake themselves 

 to the water, and shift for themselves ; but while 

 young they serve as a prey not only to ravenous 

 fish, but to their own species. It is to be ad- 

 mired that so vast an animal should at first be 

 contained in an egg no bigger than that of a 

 turkey/' 



" In South Carolina they are very numerous, 

 but the northern situation of that country occa- 

 sions their being of a smaller size than those nearer 

 the line, and they rarely attack men or cattle, yet 

 are great devourers of hogs. In Carolina they lie 

 torpid from about October to March, in caverns 

 and hollows in the banks of rivers, and at their 

 coming out in the spring, make an hideous bcl- 



