196 ALLIGATOR. 



lowing noise. The hind part of their belly and 

 tail are eat by the Indians. The flesh is delicately 

 white, but has so perfumed a taste and smell that 

 I never could relish it with pleasure." 



According to the observations of Mons. de la 

 Borde, as related by the Count de Cepede, it ap- 

 pears that the Alligators in South America deposit 

 their eggs, like the turtles, at two or three differ- 

 ent periods, at the distance of some days from 

 each other; laying from twenty to about four- 

 and-twenty eggs each time. Mons. de la Borde 

 adds, that those of Cayenne and Surinam are ob- 

 served to raise a little hillock towards the banks 

 of the river they frequent, and hollowing it out in 

 the middle, to amass together a heap of leaves and 

 other vegetable refuse in which they deposit their 

 eggs, and covering them with their leaves, a fer- 

 mentation ensues, by the heat of which, joined to 

 that of the atmosphere, the eggs are hatched. 

 The time at which the Alligators about Cayenne 

 begin to lay their eggs, is the same with that in 

 which the turtles also deposit theirs, viz. the month 

 of April. Both the Alligator and the Crocodile 

 are supposed to be very long-lived animals^ and 

 their growth is extremely slow. 



