AMERICAN SPECIES 19 



shallow water where the mainland of Florida reluctantly 

 sinks into the Gulf. 



The alleged "big 'gator" of Arch Creek was very wary, 

 and permitted no boat to approach within rifle shot. Even 

 a boat completely masked by green branches, and innocently 

 floating with the current, was enough to send the old fellow 

 quickly sliding from his basking-place on the bank into deep 

 water. At last, however, we shot him from an ambush in 

 the mangroves opposite his midday lair, and secured him. 

 His mounted skin is now to be seen in the United States 

 National Museum. 



The adult male Florida Crocodile is very rough, exter- 

 nally, and usually its natural colors have been so far obliter- 

 ated by age and exposure that on its upper surfaces its color 

 is a dull, weatherbeaten gray. The females, and males under 

 11 feet, are of a clean, grayish-olive color — or dull yellow- 

 ish-green — very different indeed from the funereal black of 

 the alligator. This difference in color between our croco- 

 diles and alligators is so marked it is quite noticeable at a 

 distance of two hundred feet or more. 



The Florida Crocodile digs burrows in the sandy banks 

 of the Miami River, and other deep streams where the ground 

 is suitable. These lairs are used as hiding-places, resting- 

 places and doubtless also as warm retreats in which to es- 

 cape the cold waves from the north, which about once every 

 five years produce killing frosts as far south as Miami. 



The entrances to these burrows are either under water, 

 or half-submerged, and they extend into the bank from ten 

 to thirty feet. At their extremity they are widened out suf- 



