ALLIGATOR. 551 



tremity. The alligator arrives at a size not much inferior to that 

 of the oocodile, specimens having been often seen of eighteen or 

 twenty feet in length. 



" Though the largest and greatest numbers of alligators/* says 

 Catesby, ** inhabit the torrid zone, the continent abounds with 

 them ten degrees more north, particularly as far as the river Neus, 

 in North Carolina, in the latitude of about 33, beyond which I 

 have never heard of any, which latitude nearly answers to the 

 northernmost parts of Africa, where they are likewise found. They 

 frequent not only salt rivers near the sea, but streams of fresh 

 water in the upper parts of the country, and in lakes of salt and 

 fresh water, on the banks of which they lie lurking among reeds, 

 to surprise cattle and other animals. In Jamaica, and many parts 

 of the continent, they are found about twenty feet in length : 

 they cannot be more terrible in their aspect, than they are formi- 

 dable and mischievous in their natures, sparing neither man nor 

 beast they can surprise, pulling them down under water, that being 

 dead, they may with greater facility, and without struggle or re- 

 sistance, devour them. As quadrupeds do not so often come in 

 their way, they almost subsist on fish ; but as Providence, for the 

 preservation, or to prevent the extinction of defenceless creatures, 

 hath in many instances restrained the devouring appetites of vora- 

 cious animals, by. some impediment or other, so this destructive 

 monster, by the close connexion of his vertebrae, can neither swim 

 nor run any way than strait forward, and is consequently disabled 

 from turning with that agility requisite to catch his prey by pur- 

 suit : therefore they do it by surprise in the water as well as by 

 land ; for effecting which, nature seems in some measure to have 

 recompensed their want of agility, by giving them a power of de- 

 ceiving and catching their prey by a sagacity peculiar to them, as 

 well as by the outer form and colour of their body, which on land 

 resembles an old dirty log or tree, and in the water frequently lies 

 floating on the surface, and there has the like appearance, by which, 

 and his silent artifice, fish, fowl, turtle, and other animals are de- 

 ceived, suddenly catched and devoured. 



6t Carnivorous animals get their food with more difficulty and 

 less certainty than others, and are often necessitated to fast a long 

 time, which a slow concoction enables them to endure : reptiles 

 particularly, by swallowing what they eat whole, digest slowly, eat 



2N4 



