The Biology of the Crocodilia 33 
back to the generator in his pocket. This lamp 
threw a blinding beam of light far across the swamp 
into the eyes of the unsuspecting ’gator, which 
usually remained fascinated until it could be ap- 
proached to within easy range. A shotgun at 
close range, of course, blows off nearly the entire 
top of the animal’s head and kills it instantly; it 
is then seized before it sinks out of reach and is 
either taken into the boat or dragged upon the 
bank to be collected with others in the early 
morning. 
In daylight, with no glaring light to hypnotize 
it, the alligator is difficult to approach within 
range and it usually disappears into its cave before 
the hunter can get a shot at it. The daylight 
hunter, then, should be supplied not, of course, 
with a light, but with a ten- or fifteen-foot pole with 
a large iron hook at the end. If the alligator be 
vigorously prodded with this mammoth fishhook 
he will usually finally seize it with his mouth and 
can be pulled out of his hole alive. It is then an 
easy matter to kill him with a bullet through the 
base of the brain. I have seen an eight-foot alli- 
gator thus killed with a little .22 calibre “cat” 
rifle. An eight-foot alligator will often be all that 
two men can manage to drag out of his cave in 
this way; and, in the torrid heat of the Southern 
swamp, this violent exercise is not to the liking of 
the usually not very energetic hunter. 
While the manufacture of leather gives the chief 
3 
