No. 2.] EMBRYOLOGY OF THE AMERICAN ALLIGATOR. 1 87 



possible despatch, required six days and nights, during which 

 time the temperature was so high as to incite and continue the 

 process of incubation. All the early stages were thus lost, and, 

 some of the eggs proving bad, another trip to Florida was made 

 in June, 1889. The time of nesting agreed with what we had 

 observed the previous year, and during four weeks' stay I got, 

 with the aid of five hunters, twelve lots of eggs, aggregating 

 about three hundred and twenty. The latest laying that I knew 

 of took place on June 17, and the earliest was on June 9. While 

 it is probable that eggs are occasionally laid somewhat later 

 than that, I doubt if they are ever laid much before the 9th. 



I visited many other places farther north in Florida, but found 

 the alligators and their nests most abundant in the swamps to 

 the westward of Fort Pierce. Possibly farther south they are 

 still more numerous. 



Nidification. 



The nest of the alligator is very large, and is built by the 

 female. A great quantity of the dead leaves and twigs, together 

 with much of the finely divided humus underlying them, is 

 scraped together into a low mound about one metre high ; this 

 varies considerably in its other dimensions, being in some in- 

 stances eight feet in diameter at the base. The nests are built 

 on the bank of a stream or pool, and the female digs a cave 

 under water in the bank close to the nest. Careful examination 

 of the largest nest found showed a root of a neighboring pal- 

 metto tree, nearly an inch in diameter, running through it at 

 about a third of a metre above the ground ; there were also 

 roots of a grape vine growing near, which extended nearly 

 through the nest. This furnishes strong support to the state- 

 ments of many of the hunters, that the nests are used for more 

 than one season. I could get no evidence whatever that the 

 nests are used more than once a year. The eggs are laid near 

 the top of the nest, within twenty centimetres of the surface, 

 are four or five layers deep, and have no regular arrangement 

 or uniform position of their axes in relation to the nest. In the 

 twelve lots of eggs that I have had, the number to a nest varies 

 from twenty to thirty-one, and averages twenty-eight. I have 

 questioned many of the alligator hunters as to the number of 

 eggs in a nest, and the maximum given was forty-seven. This 



