Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-01-12
AlligatOrs.

JUST imagine a black, slimy-looking |
lizard, from ten to twenty feet long, and |
you have him exactly. A dirtier, nastier- |
looking creature can be seen nowhere. He |
is odoriferous too-the wrong way. Where |
they are often hunted and much shot at. |
alligators become very timid and shy, and
avoid men instinctively. In wilder parts
OF the country they are sometimes fierce
and troublesome. As they crowd the
banks OF the. rivers, travellers have fine
sport shooting at them, and even boast of
killing great many; indeed, to hear the
accounts of the cockneys when they came
down the st. Johns river, you would ex-
pect to find the stream covered with float
ing carcasses of dead alligators. Butt
truth, the creature is very hard to kill in
three days journey on the st. Johns | saw
some three hundred shots fired, and only
one alligator killed outright He was struck
in the eye; his brain was penetrated, and
he lay like log. Another was made very
sick by ball in the neck, and has had a
stiff neck ever since.
They are not sociable creatures; have
seen hundreds, and never two of them to-
gether. Each one of the big fellows will
have his own stretch of river-shore or his
own side of pond, or the whole of it, if
small one, and allow no intrusion by
others of his kind. / have often heard the
negro steersman call out, "Get your guns;
dar's de place where de big gator lives;
and there he would be, sure enough
monarch of all he surveyed. Alligators
are tenacious of their rights of ownership.
If another trespasses, there is big fight,
generally ending by the stronger eating
| the weaker.
The female piles up in the swamp mass
ofmud and leaves for anest, that the suns
| hos hot L. GI.a 10 tha.,
! peculiarly savage, and will attack any
thing. A friend of mine found one of
these nests, and standing on it, employed
himself in raking out the eggs and throw
| ing them against tree, much to the detri-
ment of the young, unmatched alligators,
| who had not been consulted. There was
another party, however who thought that
she had right to an opinion in the mat
ter, and that was a female alligator. A
rustic in the bushes, rush, and then big
pair of jaws belonging to an eighteen
footer were heard swapping between his
| legs. She was so mad that she missed her
aim. My friend is a slow mani never
saw him even walk fast-but on this occa-
sion he did not wait to apologize; there
was then exhibited some of the tallest
| jumping, tumbling and running ever seen
in Florida or anywhere else. The female
will not allow the male to approach her
nest. He has a gluttonous habit of eating
all tine eggs, thus necessitating her laying
more, which she does not like to do. SO,
| whenever she catches him in that neigh
borhood she thrashes him on general princi-
ples-he either has done mischief or in
tends it; at any rate, he is meddling in
domestic matters and deserves snubbing.
l am told that it is really amusing to see
the big bully stick his tail between his
| 1aro on6 cnnol off tho IOnQnp nf q
hen-pecked husband, after one of these
coniugal seedlings. He is not by any
means a model husband and, although he
takes his trashing kindly, he revenges him
self by watching until the eggs are really
Matched, and then eats up as many of the
causes of the family dispute as he can
catch.
l heard of but few instances where these
creatures have attacked grown men; they
are fond of children and show their at
tlchment to the offspring of other people
as they do to their own. In one instance,
where man ON horseback was crossing a
ford, he was seized by the leg, but when
his dog plunged in, the alligator left his
leg to take the more delicate morsel. In
another instance, an alligator struck at a
mule, pulling at a cart, and bit out two
spokes from one of the wheels, leaving a
tooth sticking in one as memento of the
visit. He hurried off with great speed, on
the lookout suppose, for dentist.
Gators like dogs, pigs, and young dar-
kies. The dog is special fayorite. The
whine of an alligator is easily mistaken
for that of puppy, and may mislead a
young and inexperienced dog. A wise
Florida dog will not go boldly down to
the water to drink; he learns by expert
ence after having been eaten once or twice
If the shore is open, he will draw all the
alligators to one place by barking, and
then scamper off to some other place
where the coast is clear or he will Greer
down to moist spot, tail down, body
crouched, eyes skinned and ears up, push
ing his paws before him slowly to feel the
water, tapping it without noise, and ther
: sneaking away again.
The alligator has his uses; near every
house you find more or less swamp, and il
every swamp more or less alligator.
heard one lady complain very much be
cause some traveller had killed her alliga
tor He lived near, and killed snakes
frogs, young wild cats and other varmints
thus he earned his board, and was conse
quently protected; besides this, he wa!
useful in preventing young children from
straying too far from home.-Lippi1acot
Magazine.