THE ALLIGATOR. 51 



THE ALLIGATOR, 



IN THE ROYAL MENAGERY, TOWER OF LONDON. 



The animals of the lizard tribe, which have each four legs and a tail, are distinguishable, at first sight, 

 from other oviparous quadrupeds. They have no shields like the tortoises, and they are all furnished 

 with tails, which are entirely wanting in toads and frogs. Their bodies are either covered with scales of 

 greater or less rigidity, or with a kind of warts, or tubercles. Some of the species are scarcely more 

 than two inches in length, whilst others exceed even the length of five or six and twenty feet. 



The principal distinction betwixt the alligator and the crocodile is, that the former has its head and 

 part of the neck more smooth than the latter, and that the snout is considerably more wide and flat, 

 as well as more rounded at the extremity. The length of the full grown alligator is from seventeen 

 to twenty feet. 



The alligators are natives of the warmer parts of America, but it was by an accidental occurrence 

 that these inhabitants of the New]World obtained their appellation. Had the first navigators seen any 

 object that more resembled their form than a lizard, they would probably have adopted the name by 

 ■which the Indians call them, Cayman, but the Spanish sailors remarking their great resemblance to the 

 lizard, they called the first of them which they saw, Lagarto, or Lizard. When our countrymen 

 arrived in America, and heard that name, they called the creature a Lagarto, whence was afterwards 

 derived the word Alligato, or Alligator. 



Alligators deposit their eggs, like the crocodiles and turtles, at two or three different periods of the 

 year, laying from twenty to about twenty-four at each time. It is said that those of Cayenne and 

 Surinam raise a little hillock [on the bank of the water, and hollowing this out in the middle, amass 

 together a heap of leaves and other vegetable refuse, in which they deposit their eggs. These being 

 also covered with leaves, a fermentation ensues, by the heat of which, in addition to that of the atmo- 

 sphere, the eggs are hatched. The animals generally lay their eggs in the month of April, multitudes 

 of which are, however, destroyed by vultures, and immense numbers of the young animals are devoured 

 as soon as they reach the water, by various species of fish. 



Alligators are often seen floating on the surface of the water, like logs of wood, and are mistaken 

 for such by various animals, which, by this means, they surprise and draw underneath to devour at 

 leisure. They are said also sometimes to form a hole in the bank of a river, below the surface of 

 the water, and there to wait till the fish that are fatigued by the strong cm-rent come into the smooth 

 water to rest themselves, when they immediately seize and devour them. But as they are not able to 

 obtain a regular supply of food, from the fear in which they are held by all animals, and the care by 

 which these in general avoid their haunts, they are able to sustain a privation of it for a great length 

 of time. When killed and opened, stones and other hard substances are generally found in their 

 stomach. In many that Mr. Catesby examined there was nothing but mucilage and pieces of wood, 

 some of which weighed seven or eight pounds each. The angles of them were so worn down, that he 

 fancied they must have lain in the stomachs of the animals for several months. Two alligators that Dr. 

 Bricked saw killed in North Carolina, had in their bellies several sorts of snakes, and some pieces of 

 wood, and in one of them was found a stone that weighed about four pounds. 



The voracity of these animals is so great that they sometimes do not spare even mankind. A short 



time before M. Navarette was at the Manillas, he was told that as a young woman was washing her 



feet in one of the rivers, an alligator seized and carried her off. Her husband, to whom she had been 



but that morning married, hearing her screams, threw himself headlong into the water, and with a 



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