A TAME CROCODILE. 
399 
mouth of this reptile is completely formed for 
snatch and swallow.’ My experience and observation 
accord with Swainson’s statement. I had so set 
down the habit of this reptile, on the authority of 
the Spaniards of Hispaniola, in the notes I made 
when in that part of Haiti ; but when I returned to 
Cape Haitien, I had an opportunity of proving it. 
The French consul, M. Barbot, had an Alligator, 
which he kept in a cistern, fed by a mountain spring, 
in a pretty garden of his residence. The Alligator 
would be found in the water all day, but at night he 
rambled over the garden, which was walled in ; and 
was then a diligent catcher of frogs and toads. 
Usually in the morning, some half dozen hatrachians 
would be found mangled and torn, and stuffed into 
all the crannies and corners of the cistern convenient 
for that purpose ; their long disentangled entrails 
streaming out into the water. The Alligator would 
rise to the surface, take portions of the limbs and en- 
trails into its mouth, and holding them with its teeth 
pressed close, with part of the entrails on one and 
the other side of its mouth, would gently squeeze 
the whole of the food, and swallow it most leisurely. 
Its action in eating most resembled a person chew- 
ing a ‘ quid ’ of tobacco. In this way it always fed, 
at least hy day. This just agrees with the common 
account. The British consul, Mr. Heneiken, of Puerta 
Plata, an excellent observer in natural history, told 
me that in numerous Alligators he had killed and 
opened, he found nothing solid within them, ex- 
cept sticks and stones. The swallowing of these 
substances is an instinct they have in common with 
