St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1882-09-16
AN ALLIGATOR CATCHER.


AN ALLIGATOR CATCHER.
Catching and raising alligators to sell
seems rather queer business for boy;
and vet Jimmie Davis, of jacksonville,
Florida, who is only sixteen years old,
makes no small amount of money by SO
doing. His father is known by the
name of :. 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.
The father and son live nearly all the
time in the swamps. or on the banks OF
the streams where the alligators are
most plentiful going to town only when
they need fresh supplies of provisions,
or have a stock of captives to sell.
Jimmie has been SO observing in his
queer trade that he can initiate the cry
of an old mother alligator OF 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 allgators,
either alive or stuffed, are purchased by
those who make a business of exhibiting
curiosities, at prices ranging from ten
to fifty dollars for the live ones, and
l,1E hot 70 ho have
been made to "look alive by the taxi
dermist. 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-allve, they
kill him, and if no one wants such a
specimen to stuff, they sell the teeth,
which are of pure 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. The bones are the
only things about an alligator that are
thrown way, and in case of very large
or fine specimens these are utilized by
being wired together and the skeleton
sold to museums.
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 trou-
| BILE of catching the squirming 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 a 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 cover:
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 o.
course she can't sit on the eggs her.
self, as hen does, for they are only
about as large as a goose-egg, 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 queer little bark
ing and snarling, exactly as lot O
puppies would make, she knows the
babies have come out OF the shells. She
then bites hole through the side of thu
mud hut, and the little gators, onl,
about ten inches long, come scamperin2
out, running as straight for the water a
if they had been there hundreds of time:
before.
/ When Jimmie Davis can find one O
these huts, he can take the eggs to SOM
other place where the mother canno
find them, and hatch them out just a
well as she can. He then has the young
ones where he can get them wheneve
he is ready to sell them; and such Of tn
eggs as do not have any little gators il
them he can sell at the rate of fifty cent
per dozen.
Therefore when he is out hunting il
the spring of the year, which is the tim
the old alligator builds her nest, b
watches carefully for any signs of tn
little mud hut, and after he has foun,
it, he hides somewhere near to wal
until the mother has gone for he
breakfast or dinner, when he robs tn
nest.
Sometimes he finds brood ofyoung
sters that have just come out of thei
shells, and then he works hard with
stout dip-net, trying to scoop them on
of the water and keep beyond the reac
of the old gators tail at the same time
for he knows if she strikes him one
with her long scaly tail his bones wi