1032 General Notes. 
development, and of the larv for two weeks after development, 
when they possessed two toes to the hind feet. 
or arny to make two journeys of over twenty-six hundred miles 
each. 
At the time of my first visit, the first week in April, all eggs 
had been laid, and the ovaries of adult female alligators were full 
of eggs of all sizes up to 26 mm. in diameter. I returned to 
Florida June 4th, and found that I was still somewhat early, as 
the nests were then being built. With the aid of five experienced 
hunters I at last succeeded in finding, on the 9th of J une, a nest, 
evidently just completed, in which there were twenty-nine eggs. 
The next day, at a point forty miles further north, a second nest 
was found with thirty-one eggs. There were many nests found, 
old and new, but only these two contained eggs. : 
The nests vary much in size, the largest being about 24 metres 1n 
diameter at the base, and 80 cm. high in the central part, the whole 
having the shape of a rounded cone. They are located generally 
on a slightly elevated place, which is higher by a metre, or slightly 
more than the surrounding level, and covered with a thick growth 
of palmettos, mangroves, magnolias, etc. These are celled “ hum- 
mocks” by the natives. On one side of the hummock at least, ın 
some cases on all sides, is a pond from one to two metres in depth, 
and in the bank, under water, the female alligator digs a cave, 
which in some cases extends three metres under the hummock, an 
which is always close to her nest. The nest is made by paige? 
together a great pile of dead leaves and twigs and humus whic 
forms the surface of the ground, and which is arranged with some 
care. The inside is made of the more finely divided—almost Pole. 
dery—material of the deeper layers of the top soil, while the outside, 
even to the top, is covered with twigs and leaves which are whole 
or but little broken, and with many of the long, unbroken arat 
or needles of the southern pine. ` The eggs are deposited gr 
20 cm. from the top, and in the nests were found lying on top Jl 
one another, making rows or layers, with the fine humus filling & 
the interstices. The top of the nest is always exposed to the sun. 
Dr. Clarke describes the eggs as very difficult to manipulate, aS- 
