160 A NATURE WOOING. 



The eggs of the alligator are laid in large conical 

 nests composed of mud, twigs and leaves. They hatch 

 in May or June, and the young, when a year old, are 

 about a foot in length. Bartram, who spent many 

 months in this state at a time when these saurians 

 were present by thousands, and before their habits 

 had become changed by the presence of a horde of 

 sportsmen intent upon their destruction, wrote of 

 them as follows: "On turning a point or projection 

 of the river bank, at once I beheld a great number of 

 hillocks or small pyramids, resembling hay-cocks, 

 ranged like an encampment along the banks. They 

 stood fifteen or twenty yards distant from the water, 

 on a high marsh, about four feet perpendicular above 

 the water. I knew them to be the nests of the alli- 

 gator, having had a description of them before; and 

 now expected a furious and general attack, as I saw 

 several large alligators swimming abreast of these 

 buildings. These nests being so great a curiosity to 

 me, I was determined at all events immediately to 

 land and examine them. Accordingly, I ran my bark 

 on shore at one of their landing places, which was a 

 sort of nick or little dock, from which ascended a 

 sloping path or road up to the edge of the meadow, 

 where their nests were ; most of them were deserted, 

 and the great thick, whitish egg-shells lay broken and 

 scattered upon the ground round about them. 



"The nests or hillocks are of the form of an obtuse 

 cone, four feet high and four or five feet in diameter 



