10 The Alliijator and Its Allies 



'fc) 



of a single cypress log, and waded through the 

 Everglades for several days, searching for alligator 

 eggs, and that we found only one nest and saw 

 only one or two alligators (Fig. 3). 



Doubtless in more remote parts of the Ever- 

 glades the alligators are much more numerous. 



During another summer the writer, with a guide, 

 penetrated the very center of the State, to the 

 region southeast of Lake Kissimmee, forty miles 

 from the nearest railroad; here the alligators, and 

 in consequence their nests, are fairly abundant, 

 though the native hunters are, even in this remote 

 region, rapidly thinning their ranks. 



A still greater number of alligators was found, the 

 following summer, in the Okefinokee Swamp in 

 southern Georgia. In the center of this great 

 waste, ten miles or more from dry land, nearly 

 one hundred alligators, ranging from about four 

 to eight feet in length, were killed within a week 

 by a small party of native hunters with whom the 

 writer was traveling (Fig. 4) . 



Whether this wholesale destruction by sports- 

 man and native hunter will eventually exterminate 

 our giant reptile, as has been the case with the 

 buffalo and other game animals, it is impossible 

 to say. Unless the Everglades and the Okefinokee 

 are largely drained it seems probable that a few 

 alligators will always remain in the most inacces- 

 sible regions. 



The collection of eggs for sale and for hatching 



