ALLIGATOR KILLING. 19] 
disappears, and you are for a few moments unable to 
learn the extent of injury you have inflicted. 
An excellent shot, who sent the load with almost 
unerring certainty through the eye, made one at a huge 
alligator, and, as usual, he disappeared, but almost in- 
stantly rose again, spouting water from his nose, not 
unlike a whale. A second ball, shot in his tail, sent 
him down again, but he instantly rose and spouted: 
this singular conduct prompted a bit of provocation, in 
the way of a plentiful sprinkling of bits of wood, rattled 
against his hide. The alligator lashed himself into a 
fury; the blood started from his mouth; he beat the 
water with his tail until he covered himself with spray, 
but never sunk without instantly rising again. 
In the course of the day he died and floated ashore ; 
and, on examination, it was found that the little valve 
with which nature has provided the reptile, to close over 
its nostrils when under water, had been cut off by the 
first shot, and he was thus compelled to stay on the top 
of the water to keep from being drowned. 
We have heard of many since who have tried thus to 
wound them, and although they have been hit in the 
nose, yet they have been so crippled as to sink and die. 
The. alligator, when inhabiting places near planta- 
tions, is particularly destructive on pigs and dogs, and 
if you wish to shoot them, you can never fail to draw 
them on the surface of the water, if you will make a dog 
yell, or a pig squeal; and that too, in places where you 
