152 HISTORY OF THE ALLIGATOR, 



ration they are not voracious ; and perhaps they, like the 

 turtle, abstain in great part from eating at that time. 

 Their grand feasts are during the floods, especially the 

 first of them, whether from the southern rains, or the melt- 

 ing of the snows at the sources of more northerly rivers, 

 such as the Mississippi. These rains by their violence 

 beat down many animals, and sweep away many animal 

 remains, wafting them all to those temporary lakes in the 

 forests, in which the water stagnates with its floatage- 

 Recent or putrid mammalia, birds, reptiles, or fish, (for 

 some of the latter are killed, and many lose their manage- 

 ment,) are all the same to the alligators. Mountain cat, 

 monkey, vulture, parrot, snake, lizard, fish, (the gymno- 

 tus itself,) or even the deadly bushmaster, all find jaws 

 ready to seize them ; and while the harvest lasts, which 

 may be about eight or ten weeks in the average of places, 

 the reptiles grow fat, and are able to undergo the labors of 

 the year with little food, as has been said. 



There is not a doubt that these large and powerful rep- 

 tiles, whether alligators, as so called, crocodiles, or ga vials, 

 perform an important part in nature's economy by so 

 doing. In spite of all that they take, and they are neither 

 few nor indolent at that time, (for in them as in other crea- 

 tures the time of activity and of appetite is the same,) there 

 remains enough to putrify and steam up with the returning 

 heat, so as to render the atmosphere abundantly pestilent 

 to all who have the hardihood to encounter it. But if they 

 did not do their work, and if the larger grallidse and the 

 vultures did not come after as soon as there is provision 

 for them, the banks of the rivers could not be approached 

 within many miles, unless by those who sought to die 

 there. 



We mention those scenes and circumstances, not for the 

 sake of those whose taste in natural science goes after "an 

 alligator stuffed ;" but who would rather know something 

 of the haunts of the alligator, and of what that very pe>w- 



