552 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



to have lived "six mqnths without food. When prey is 

 caught of sufficient size to offer resistance, the Alligator 

 sets his jaws with a vise-like grip; then, by using his tail, 

 rolls rapidly over and over until the prey is drowned, 

 when, if it be too large to swallow whole, a mouthful is 

 seized, and the rolling prpcess repeated, until it is bitten 

 and twisted off. 



In their common walk, the central surface just clears 

 the ground, and the end of the tail drags so as to leave a 

 sharp cut in the mud between the foot-prints. But, when 

 necessary, the Alligator can arch his back, straighten his 

 legs so as to raise his body some distance from the ground, 

 and shuffle off at a surprising gait. As a rule, he seldom 

 goes far from water, and when he does, it is in traveling 

 from one body of water to another. If the water dries up, 

 he selects the lowest place in the basin, and digs a hole, 

 usually five or six feet deep, running back under some pro- 

 tecting growth, whose roots keep the roof from falling in 

 upon him. Here he lies and dreams the hours away, in a 

 chronic state of mud-bath. 



The swimming is done entirely by the tail, the legs being 

 laid back against the body; the powerful; flat -ended tail 

 sweeps from side to side, just as a fish uses its tail, excepting 

 that a 'Gator's tail, being longer, has a more serpentine 

 motion. As usually seen swimming, the upper half of the 

 head is above water, and moving slowly along; but at times, 

 when startled from the shore, he will plunge quickly in, 

 and swim off underneath the surface for a short distance, 

 at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. 



As to his disposition, I am afraid that, aside from its 

 most prominent features, it will remain to the human mind 

 a sealed book; for however well we may understand him 

 from our own stand-point, we are utterly at a loss to under- 

 stand him from his, as outside of obedience to the two 

 most prominent laws of life— the preservation of the indi- 

 vidual and the perpetuation of the species— he seems to 

 take so little interest in existence that you can not help 

 wondering what it may all mean to him. 



