162 A NATURE WOOIKO. 



which are under her care, and providing for their 

 subsisten.ce, and when she is basking upon the warm 

 banks with her brood around her you may hear the 

 young ones continually whining and barking, like 

 younp' puppies. I believe but few of a brood live to 

 the years of full growth and magnitude, as the old 

 feed on the young as long as they can make prey of 

 them. 



"The alligator when full grown is a very large and 

 terrible creature and of prodigious strength, activity 

 and swiftness in the water? I have seen them twenty 

 feet in length, and some are supposed to be twenty- 

 two or twenty-three feet. Their body is as large as 

 that of a horse ; their shape exactly resembles that of 

 a lizard, except their tail, which is flat or cuneiform, 

 being compressed on each side and gradually diminish- 

 ing from the abdomen to the extremity, which, with 

 the whole body, is covered with horny plates or 

 squammse, impenetrable when on the body of the live 

 animal, even to a rifle-ball, except about their head 

 and just behind their forelegs or arms, where it is said 

 they are only vulnerable. The head of a full-grown 

 one is about three feet, and the mouth opens nearly 

 the same length; their eyes are small in proportion 

 and seem sunk deep in the head, by means of the 

 prominency of the brows; the nostrils are large, in- 

 flated and prominent on the top, so that the head in 

 the water resembles, at a distance, a great chunk of 

 wood floating about. Only the upper jaw moves, 



