CROCODILES 



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leather, were remarked. Before long bags of crocodile- 

 hide were made in New York for visitors who had 

 brought the leather from Florida. It then became 

 fashionable for the most luxurious form of bag, dressing- 

 case, and leather trinkets ; and though it is less durable 

 than pigskin, being liable to split where the deeper 

 markings cross, it remains the most popular material for 

 this kind of article de luxe. Most of this leather is 

 alligator skin, not crocodile, and the main supply comes 

 from the swamps and rivers of Florida. In this 

 exquisite climate, and among the quays, streams, coral 

 reefs and lakes of the peninsula, the life of birds and 

 fish seems almost at its maximum intensity. But 

 wonderful as are the swarms of sea-birds pelicans, 

 cormorants and herons the fish population is even 

 more extraordinary, because not only the numbers, but 

 the size of the species is incredibly augmented by the 

 vast supply of food. There the herring is represented 

 by the gigantic tarpon, five feet long ; and sharks, 

 monstrous barracoutas, giant turtles and other maritime 

 monsters swarm in the warm rivers and salt lagoons. 

 There the alligators, fed on this bountiful fare, swarm 

 also ; and great as is the demand for their skins, 

 alligator-shooting by night still yields a plentiful supply, 

 and affords a novel, if rather tame, sport. Each shooter 

 fastens a dark lantern to his cap, and thus equipped sits 

 in the bows of a canoe, and like some luciferous monster 



