Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/351

Rh snorts which the creature can produce at will, no one will be likely to dispute that his collection of diabolical noises is quite complete.

During the period of incubation the female alligator is a devoted mother. She does not desert her nest from the time that the eggs are laid until they are hatched—lying concealed in the scrub close by—and she is naturally, at this time, most dangerous to approach, although her vigilance does not always save a portion of her unhatched progeny from the numerous enemies that have a fondness for alligator omelet.

The nest is a large, well-rounded heap or mound, composed of sand and rubbish, which she drags and pushes together with her



claws. Throughout this mound she deposits her eggs, from forty to seventy and over. These eggs resemble those of a goose, only that they are larger; they have a thick, tough shell, and are of about the same size at both ends. In about sixty days, the heat of the sun, combined with the warmth and moisture generated by the fermentation of the rubbish, completes the process of incubation, and the little ones begin to come forth.

Forcing their way through the sand, they hurry down the sloping sides of the mound, straightway seeking the water by instinct. While these baby 'gators are thus kicking and flinging off their shell overcoats as they emerge from their incubator, perfect little duplicates of their mother—only that they are rather pretty in their clean, glossy, black or dark-brown skins, which have orange-colored stripes that completely ring their miniature tails and bodies—she wanders