Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/70

62 party, seated in the bottom, is paddled, or poled, in search of water-game. There, on a sudden, hundreds of Alligators are seen dispersed all over the lake, their head and all the upper part of their body floating like a log, and in many instances so resembling one, that it requires to be accustomed to see them, to know the distinction. Millions of the large wood-ibis are seen wading through the water, muddling it up, and striking deadly blows with their bills on the fish within. Here are a horde of blue herons; the sand-hill crane rises with hoarse note; the snake-birds are perched here and there on the dead timber of the trees; the cormorants are fishing; buzzards and carrion-crows exhibit a mourning train, patiently waiting for the water to dry, and leave food for them; and far in the horizon the eagle overtakes a devoted wood-duck, singled from the clouded flocks that have been bred there. It is then that you see and hear the Alligator, at his work; each lake has a spot deeper than the rest, rendered so by those animals, who work at it; and always situated at the lower end of the lake, near the connecting bayous, which, as drainers, pass through all these lakes, and discharge sometimes many miles below where the water had made its entrance above; thereby ensuring themselves water, as long as any will remain. This is called by the hunters the Alligator's hole. You see them there lying close together. The fish, that are already dying by thousands, through the insufferable heat and stench of the water, and the wounds of the different winged enemies constantly in pursuit of them, resort to the Alligator's hole to receive