ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1439 



From a pen drawing by John Tee Van 



NEWLY-HATCHED ALLIGATORS FROM THE COASTLANDS OF BRITISH GUIANA 

 Showing the three alleged forms: A, Goosway: B, Abary; C, Goomasaka. 



sometimes surrounding him at once. After mat- 

 ing, each goes off to her respective nest, where 

 she deposits the entire number of eggs at one 

 laying, afterwards covering them carefully. 



The male never goes near the nest, except 

 under very unusual circumstances, and it is in 

 this connection that my alligator hunter in- 

 dulged his belief in a romantic yarn, which he 

 was convinced was true. I recount it rather as 

 a pleasant bit of negro imagination, than as 

 an addition to reptilian psychology. My hunter 

 said that now and then he came across maimed 

 and crippled females which yet had well-built 

 nests full of eggs. One such was an animal 

 which had three feet bitten off, leaving only one 

 hind leg. She could not get up the trench bank 

 without support, and yet her nest was on the 

 top. After trapping her, the hunter concealed 

 himself and called, and was surprised to be 

 answered b,y a big seven foot bull-'gator which 

 came out of the water to the nest. In this and 

 several other instances, so my hunter argued, tlT,e 

 male must have built the nest, as well as help- 

 ing the female to get out of the water when- 

 ever she returned to it. 



When an alligator is trapped or caught in 

 the hand it utters loud chirping squeaks, not un- 

 like the distress cries of some birds. By imi- 

 tating this, all the alligators within hearing will 

 answer and approach, most of them being fe- 

 males, with now and then an occasional male. 



Every season my alligator hunter collects 

 more than three thousand eggs, of which some- 

 times only about eight hundred hatch. In every 

 'gator's nest there are always a number of in- 

 fertile eggs, ranging from five to twenty per 

 cent. In a six weeks' nest, these can already be 

 detected and thrown away, but in a nest where 

 the eggs have been deposited only three weeks, 

 the fertile cannot be told from the infertile 

 ones. The fertile eggs remain white but the bad 

 ones soon turn yellow, at first in spots and later 

 all over. In a healthy egg with a four weeks' 

 embrj^o, the two end thirds of the egg are pale 

 pink or flesh color. The surface of some eggs 

 is almost smooth, but usually the lime incrusta- 

 cens resemble the convolutions of brain coral. 



The hunters recognize three kinds of alli- 

 gators, both young and adults of which they can 

 distinguish on sight. These are known respect- 



