Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-09-14
A YOUNG ALLIGATOR CATCHER.


seems rather. queer business for boy;
ana vet Jimmie Davis, of Jacksonville,
Florida, who is only sixteen years old,
makes no small amount of money bysso
doing. His father is known by the
name of g Alligator Davis, and, as the
name implies, is in the same line OF
trade, having taken his son with him as
an assistant since he was eight years
old. 80 31ozas !..7s*es astsE .efoes zalhl
The father and SON live nearly all the
time in the swamps. ORION the banks Of
the streams where the alligatorss are
most plentiful, going TO town only when
they need fresh supplies Of, provisions,
or have stock of captiyes to sell I =.
Jimmie has been SO observing in his
queer trade that he can initiate the cry
of an old mother alligator or her young
ones to such perfection that they will
come running after him, thinking his
voice that of one of the family There
have been times, though. when Jimmie
: has called altogether too successfully,
and has had either the father or the
mother come at him so.angry at the de-
ception practiced that he has had great
difficulty in. getting out. Of. the way
quickly enough. .
You must know that large alligators,
either alive or stuffed, are purchased by
those who make business of exhibiting
cutiosities, at prices ranging from ten
to fifty dollars for the live ones, and
about half that sum for those that have
been made to s'slook alive by the TAXI
dernist. Young ones are bought by
the visitors to Florida, as are the eggs,
and the demand for almost everything
pertaining to the. alligator is SO great
that Jimmie often earns as much as
twenty dollars in a week, and very sell
dom less than five. When neither he
nor his father can catch a gator as
they are called in Florida-alive, they
kill him, and if no one wants such q
specimen to stuff, they sell the teeth,
which are ofapure ivory, to be made
into jewelry, cane or umbrella heads,
and even perfume-bottles. The skin is
sold to be made into leather, the flesh
is sometimes used for food; but more
often the oil is boiled out of it, since it
is highly priced by those who
need the finest quality of
lubricators.s The bones are the
only things about an alligator that are
thrown away, and in case of very large
or fine specimens these are utilized by
being wired together and the skeleton
sold to museums. - zSf'@ s@& es4 -fz'sa
Then there are the eggs, which Jimmie
had rather get than the young gators
themselves, because he can hatch the
young ones out and not have the troul-
BILE of catching the usquirming little
things that run very fast even; on the
first day they come into the world.
When an old alligator is about to lay
eggs she selects some. nice, quiet place
on the bank of stream where she
thinks no one will come to disturb her,
and. then she beats the ground down
hard with her tail until she has made a
smooth floor as large around as the top
of hogshead. On this place she lays
from thirty to forty eggs, and covers
them with dried grass and mud until
she has formed little round hut.
The outside of this she covers with clay,
which dries perfectly alright. OF.
course she can't sit ON the eggs her.
self, as a hen does, for they are only.
about as large as a goose-egg,s although.
more of an oblong shape, and she would
crush them; but after, she has built this
hut she knows the sun will do all the
rest of the work She watches the place
very jealousy every one of the forty
days required to hatch the young ones,
and when she hears a. queer little bark
ing and snarling, exactly as lot of
puppies would make, she knows the
babies have come out of the shells. She
then bites hole through the side of the
mud hut, and the little gators, only
about ten inches long, come scampering
out, running as straight for the water as
if they had been there hundreds of times
before. + = .r.f~aF a.
When Jimmie Davis can find one of
these huts, he can take the eggs to some
other place where the mother cannot
find them, and hatch them out just as
well as she can. He then has the young
ones where he can get them whenever
he is ready to sell them; and such of the
eggs as do not have any little gators in
them he can sell at the rate of fifty cents
Therefore when he is out hunting in
the spring. of the year, which is the time
the old alligator builds her nest, hes
watches carefully for any signs of the
little mud hut, and after he has found
it, he hides somewhere near to wait
until the mother has gone for her
breakfast or dinner, when he robs the
nest. - = tEss-R s.ta.1kF ti3s'
Sometimes he finds brood of young
sters that have just come out of their
shells, and then he works hard with a
stout dip-net, trying to scoop them out
of the water and keep beyond the reach
of the old gators tail at the same time;
for he knows if she strikes him once
with her long scaly tail his. bones will
be broken, il he is not killed. outright.
AS fast as he catches the young ones he
puts them, in a bag, where he keeps
them until he, has enough to make Tita
worth his while to go to town to sell
them. q
There is not much danger in catching
young gators so long as one keeps out
of the mother 8 way; but when Jimmie
and his father start out to catch big
fellow alive. then the sport is both ex-
citing and dangerous, lasting sometimes
two or three days. sssx.r
1t is very seldom they get. an oppor-
tunity to steal up to one and fasten a
rope around him, for that can only be
done when the 'gatoris asleep. The way
they usually do it is to build regular
pen in the water near the bank, leaving
a door just wide enough for the alliga-