Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/71

Rh refreshment, with a hope of finding security also, and follow down the little current, flowing through the connecting sluices: but no! for, as the water recedes in the lake, they are here confined. The Alligators thrash them, and devour them whenever they feel hungry, while the ibis destroys all that make towards the shore.

"By looking attentively on this spot, you plainly see the tails of the Alligators moving to and fro, splashing, and now and then, when missing a fish, throwing it up in the air. The hunter anxious to prove the value of his rifle, marks one of the eyes of the largest Alligators, and as the hair-trigger is touched, the Alligator dies. Should the ball strike one inch astray from the eye, the animal flounces, rolls over and over, beating furiously about him with his tail, frightening all his companions, who sink immediately, whilst the fishes, like blades of burnished metal, leap in all directions out of the water, so terrified are they at this uproar. Another and another receives the shot in the eye and expires; yet those that do not feel the fatal bullet, pay no attention to the death of their companions, till the hunter approaches very close, when they hide themselves for a few moments, by sinking backwards."

The Alligator, like most other reptiles, is endowed with great powers of abstinence; and as stones and pieces of wood are frequently found in its stomach, it is supposed that these are swallowed to relieve the pangs of hunger, by the mechanical distension of that organ. Catesby, Dr. Brickell, and many other persons of veracity, have testified to the fact from personal observation. In some of these cases the lumps, from the