The Arizona sentinel., 1886-04-10
PET ALLIGATORS.
A New Workers Successful Work With an
 Incubator.

New Workers Successful Work With an
 Incubator.
 There are about two dozen little alli- gators squirming about in a show win dow of Broad street. Beside them is a three-story incubator of fluffy little chickens looking out of the second-story windows The inference is natural that the youthful alligators were also matched out by artificial means, and the other day reporter went in to ask MT. Mather about it. MT. Mather is great broad shouldered, intelligent Scotchman, who is the stepmother of tens of thousands of little chickens, ducklings and goslings, who were ''born they know not why" but who could read the answer in scientific arrangement of kerosene lamps and sawdust, if they were little. better posted as to causes and effects in the life of chickendom.
 MT. Mather smiled and said that the flock, or tribe, or herd, or whatever the commercial settlement of alligators may be called, were all matched out in his incubatorS, and he had done the same thing many times before. Out of this batch of fifty eggs he had ''incu- bated'' thirty-five bouncing young alligators. It required from thirty two to thirty-five days to com plete the operation, but this was an im- provement of three days on nature. When on her native heath, Mrs. Alliga- tor leaves her eggs carefully buried on a convenient sand-bar and then goes off to gossip with her lady alligator friends, leaving her embryotic offspring to the tender mercies of the sand and the sun. The shell of the alligator's egg, like that of the snake and turtle, is horny and has none of the carbonate of lime that forms an important part of the ordinary egg shell. It is not clipped or cracked by the ambitious inmate, but is sOftened by moisture and then worn away or burst open. In the natural state there is often lack of moisture and it is by supplying this need that MT. Mather is enabled to compete successfully with nature in the manufacture of alligators.
 The infantile alligator is about six inches long and black as the heart of a stage villain. For the first few days he nourishes himself with the absorption of his shell lining. When this means of support is exhausted he is fed on oat- meal, milk and meat. The oatmeal is sprinkled in the water in which he pad lles about. Once in the three days he is taken up and choked until he opens his mouth. Then little pieces of fresh meat, about the size of a pepper corn are dropped into his mouth and disappear like pennies First National Bank" When the milk is to be fed to him he is hanged up by the tail with his nose just submerged in the milk. This leaves him the choice of suffocation and drinking milk, and, as he isn't bad little alligator at heart, he generally yields to persuasion. The members of MT. Mathey's happy alliga- tor family are five or six weeks old and extremely vivacious for alligatOrs of that age. They are about foot long, Their teeth are we'll developed, and one vicious little bull came near taking a piece out of MT. Mather's thumb the other day. He had his alligatorship in his pocket, and when he put his hand in to pull him out, the young reptile caught hold of his thumb. Any attempt to shake or pull him of would have taken piece out of the thumb. The only way was to choke him till he gasped.
 MT. Mather says that he has raised many alligators and sold them as pets. They can be taught to come when whistled for, and when locked out in the back kitchen over night one will bark like a lonely dog. Vigorous and repeat ed applications of the stick will cure him of this trick of singing when he's sad- dest, and although well-trained allIga- tor has trouble about putting his tail be- tween his legs, he'll make the att tempt and crawl under the table when the stick is shaken at him. The alligator is said to live to the good old age of one hundred | years if not troubled with dyspepsia, and MT. Mather is able to stand up be- | fore his fellow-men and tell a story | about one that he kept till he was five | feet long and ten inches broad, and so | strong that he could trip his owner up | in catch-as- catch-can wrestling match. | This highly educated alligator would | claw his beloved master, and thrash | him with his tail in fun, but would | never bite him or any of his children, though not averSe to an occasional mouthful of tender and juicy small boy of any other family.
 five matched out snakes, turtles and all kinds of fowls and reptiles" says MT. Mather, ''but the worst thing ever tackled was a prairie chicken. l lost brood after brood, no matter what fed them. Finally I gave two men five dollars each to go out and find me a nest of young birds just matched. They brought me three. When I opened their crops I found nettle seed, timothy seed and one or two other light seeds in them. That gave me the key. After that could raise all the prairie chickens that were wanted. ."-M r. Tribune.