No . 2 . ] EM BR YOLOG Y OF THE AMERICAN ALLIGA TOR. 1 8 3 



brilliantly colored. The more brilliant color occurs in patches 

 and streaks on the sides of the head and body ; it is generally 

 a light yellow, or even whitish, and on one large male I saw a 

 fairly bright red spot over each eye. 



The alligators are rapidly diminishing in numbers under the 

 stimulus of the high prices offered to the hunters for their 

 hides. Both whites and Indians make unceasing war upon 

 them. Several thousand skins were brought into the little sta- 

 tion of Fort Pierce last year. The pioneers and settlers always 

 destroy the nests and eggs, because the alligators eat their pigs ; 

 and the cleaned eggs and young alligators are sold by hundreds 

 in the curio shops farther north. 



So effective have been these various methods of destruction, 

 that the most expert hunters at Fort Pierce were unable to get 

 me any eggs this summer (1890). It should be stated, however, 

 that the unusual drouth this year has driven the alligators into 

 the remote and more inaccessible portions of the swamps. As 

 their numbers diminish in Florida, it is noticed that the moc- 

 casin snakes increase. In Louisiana, also, the alligators are 

 disappearing; and there the muskrats are at the same time 

 increasing, and are doing much damage by burrowing in the 

 levees along the Mississippi. 



While the alligator can make a very stout fight, I have never 

 seen one offer fight if there was any chance to retreat ; and the 

 hunters have had the same experience. They never offered to 

 molest us, even when we waded through the ponds where they 

 were, which we did at least a score of times. 



The current statement that the armor of the alligator is 

 bullet-proof is entirely fallacious. While it is true that a ball 

 may very rarely glance from the head, or from the thickest, 

 hardest covering on the back, it is also a fact that alligators are 

 often killed with slugs or buck-shot from a shotgun. The 

 hunter aims for the brain, just between, or a little back of, the 

 eyes. I did not meet any one who shoots at the eye, though it 

 is very commonly held that the eyes are the only places on the 

 body where a rifle bullet can force its way through to a vital 

 part. There is no spot which is invulnerable to a buck-shot 

 from a shot-gun, and I found no difficulty in cutting through 

 the skin of and dissecting an eight-foot alligator with an ordinary 

 pocket-knife. In some of the most secluded parts of the Florida 



