NORTH AMERICA. 
codiles fwimming abreafl of thefe buildings. Thefe 
neks being fo great a curiofity to me, I was deter- 
mined at all events immediately to land and exa- 
mine them. Accordingly, I ran my bark on fliore 
at one of their landing-places, which was a fort of 
nick or little dock, from which afcended a Hoping 
path or road up to the edge of the meadow, where 
their neks were ; moft of them were deferred, and 
the great thick whitifh egg- Hi ells lay broken and 
fcattered upon the ground round about them. 
The neks or hillocks are of the form of an obtufe 
cone, four feet high and four or five feet in dia- 
meter at their bafes ; they are conkrudied with mud, 
grafs, and herbage. At krk they lay a floor of this 
kind of tempered mortar on the ground, upon which 
they depofit a layer of eggs, and upon this a Hra- 
tum of mortar feven or eight inches in thicknefs, 
and then another layer of eggs, and in this manner 
one Hratum upon another, nearly to the top. I be- 
lieve they commonly lay from one to tw 7 o hundred 
eggs in a nek : thefe are hatched, I fuppofe, by the 
heat of the fun ; and perhaps the vegetable fub- 
kances mixed with the earth, being aCted upon by the 
fun, may caufe a fmall degree of fermentation, and 
fo increafe the heat in thofe hillocks. The ground 
for feverai acres about thefe neks fhevved evident 
marks of a continual refort of alligators ; the grafs 
was every where beaten down, hardly a blade or 
kraw was left {landing; whereas, all about, at a 
dikance, it was five or fix feet high, and as thick 
as it could grow together. The female, as I ima- 
gine, carefully watches her own nek of eggs until 
they are all hatched ; or perhaps while fhe is attend- 
ing her own brood, fhe takes under her care and 
protection as many as fhe can get at one time, ei- 
ther 
