558 BIG GAME OK NORTH AMERICA. 



but awkward efforts to row, that resulted in no movement 

 of the boat, but much merriment among the ladies. They 



laughed all the louder as W 's awkward efforts grew 



more tragic, until, tired of the splashing that they w^ere 

 getting, they told him that it was customary to take up the 

 anchor before rowing away. 



After reaching the Alligator, we found him again on his 

 feet. He was again subjected to the killing process, and 

 tied to the landing, where I found him the next day, not 

 dead, but still able to walk. I have recounted this advent- 

 ure, not in order to show how to kill an Alligator, but to 

 illustrate his wonderful vitality and his tenacity of life; 

 also to teach Northern sportsmen what course to shun. 



On reaching the place where I had killed the Alligator 

 dead at the first shot, we fished him up, and found that I 

 had hit him in the ear; and on dissecting his head, learned 

 that the brain of a ten-foot Alligator is no larger than a 

 man's thumb; that owing to its small size and location, it 

 is not to be reached from the eye unless the ball ranges 

 backward and downward after striking; that some of the 

 topmost bones of the skull could be removed without 

 exposing the brain, and that the proper place to shoot a 

 'Gator, when broadside to you, is in the ear, which, in a 

 ten-foot animal, is about three inches back of the eye. 

 Acting in accordance with the knowledge gained in dissect- 

 ing that head, T have since shot over fifty ' Gators, from six 

 to eleven feet in length, and seldom failed to kill them 

 at the first shot. As a dead 'Gator is such an uncer- 

 tain quantity, it is well to run the small blade of a pocket- 

 knife down between the occiput and the first cervical 

 vertebra, thus severing the spinal cord, which is the most 

 effectual way of killing any animal. After treating them 

 in this way, I have taken three ' Gators, weighing at least 

 two hundred pounds each, into a skiff at one time. 



In regard to the different methods of apj^roach, any 

 experienced hunter would be able to choose the best on 

 seeing the lay of the land. Shooting from the shore is 

 usually most successful; but a boat should be handy, for a 



