The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1883-11-08
About AlligatOrs.

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OF ivory. number of skins, and quantity
of oil obtained from the older members
of the saurin family are sufficient to
entitle them to high place among the
products of the state.
The hunter sells young "'gators" at
$25 per hundred, and the dealer at from
Is cents to 81 each. Live alligators two
years old represent to the captor 80
cents each, and to the dealer from 50 to
IS, as the season OF travel is at its height
or far advanced. A ten.foot alligator is
worth $40, and one IA feet long $25 to
twice or three times that price. The
per dozen AMI to the dealer % cents
apiece.
The wages of the hunter depend, of
course, upon his good fortune in finding
the game. One of the most expert of
these gives us instances of successful
hunts the items of the three days work
which yielded $3975; of six days, with
yield of $40. 10, and of eight days hunt
ing, which netted $4O.25.
Without speaking of those enemies of
the "'gator" whoshunt him for sport,
there are about two hundred men in the
state of Florida who make business and
try to make living by capturing or kill
ing him. Very many have eaten alliga
tor steak for simple curiosity to learn its
flavor; but many more eat it because it
is the cheapest and oftentimes the only
meat they can afford. The favor when
it is fried or broiled is that of beefsteak
plentifully supplied with fish gravy,
while the fore legs roasted taste like .
mixture Of chicken ana fish, and have a
delicate fiber.
Very methodical in his habits is the
alligator, and very suspicious Of any
thing new around his home. When he
starts out in search Of food it IS invari-
ably an hour after the tide has began to
ebb, and he returns about four hours
after low water. If lac has land jour
ney to perform he goes and'comes by the
same route, never deviating from it
until he sees evidence that strangers
have trespassed on his domain. He lives
on the bank of some stream, for he has
decided objections to stagnant water and
to make his home he. digs hole at least
twelve inches below the level of the
water. This hole is perfectly straight,
although on an incline, and from twenty
to thirty feet in length, terminating in
chamber sufficiently large to admit OF his
turning in it. There he or she dwells
alone, save when the female is caring for
her young brood, in which case the one
room is converted into nursery. Full
grown alligators not only do not occupy
the same hole, but they will not live
near each other.
The alligator generally lays her eggs
about the lst of July, and during the
month of June she is busily engaged in
preparing the cradle for her young.
Selecting II place on the bank Of some
stream or creek, she begins work by
beating hard and level with her tail an
earth platform about six feet square.
She scrapes together with her fore feet,
oftentimes from distance OF fifty yards
from the proposed nest, dried grass,
sticks and mud until fifteen or twenty
cubic feet Of the material is in place
convenient for her purpose. On the
day following the completion OF these
preparations she lays from thirty to fifty
eggs on the prepared ground, and piles
over them dried grass and mud deity
worked in with sticks, until mound six
feet in diameter and three feet high has
been raised. The surface of this is
quickly hardened by the sun, and in or
der that it may be as nearly alright as
possible the female visits it each day,
covering with mud any crevices that may
have appeared, as we'll rs remodeling
such portions as do not satisfy her sense
of beauty.
The ordinary time OF incubation is
about two months. and then the newly
Matched brood may be heard yelping
and snarling for their mother to con.
tinue her work by releasing them from
their prison nest. On the second or
third day after the first noise has been
heard the female bites hole in the side
of the mound, out of which the young
ones, barely more than eleven inches
long, come tumbling in the most vigor-
GUS manner, crawling directly toward
the water. Until the young ones are
three years old the mother exercises .
parental care over them. always remain
ing within sound of their voices, not so
much to protect them from their natural
enemy, man, as from their unnatural
enemy, their father, who has an especial
fondness for his own children in the way
Of food.
When the hunter finds q nest he car
ries the eggs homo to hatch them, where
he can easily capture the brood
II the eggs are fresh or IL the
Young in them are not more than four
inches long; at any other stage they will
not hatch il removed, and are Of no value
except for the she'll. The captured eggs
ara then hacked in straw rs nearly ~