10 The Alligator and Its Allies 
of a single cypress log, and waded through the 
Everglades for several days, searching for alligator 
eggs, and that we found only one nest and saw 
only one or two alligators (Fig. 3). 
Doubtless in more remote parts of the Ever- 
glades the alligators are much more numerous. 
During another summer the writer, with a guide, 
penetrated the very center of the State, to the 
region southeast of Lake Kissimmee, forty miles 
from the nearest railroad; here the alligators, and 
in consequence their nests, are fairly abundant, 
though the native hunters are, even in this remote 
region, rapidly thinning their ranks. 
A still greater number of alligators was found, the 
following summer, in the Okefinokee Swamp in 
southern Georgia. In the center of this great 
waste, ten miles or more from dry land, nearly 
one hundred alligators, ranging from about four 
to eight feet in length, were killed within a week 
by a small party of native hunters with whom the 
writer was traveling (Fig. 4). 
Whether this wholesale destruction by sports- 
man and native hunter will eventually exterminate 
our giant reptile, as has been the case with the 
buffalo and other game animals, it is impossible 
tosay. Unless the Everglades and the Okefinokee 
are largely drained it seems probable that a few 
alligators will always remain in the most inacces- 
sible regions. 
The collection of eggs for sale and for hatching 
