San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-03-12
AN ALlIGAToR,s NEST.
Il Is Built at Night Behind a Screen of
Saw Grass.

intervening DtJWeen LDtLu IneTe Is UD6
margin of lake with bed of saw
grass. In this a huge alligator yearly
builds her nest, and deposits her two
dozen great eggs. When she is at last
dislodged or destroyed, the scene will
have lost a fine accent of the subtropics.
This summer her domestic affairs have
furnished me an interesting chapter of
her life history.
There is a chain of small lakes just
here, in one or another of which the old
alligator or her mate, or both, may be
seen at any favorable time for them to
the pair resort to the aforementioned
lake, and, at night and in the early
morning, are heard believing and gam
boiling in the water and saw grass, until
the laying season is past. Sometimes in
warm weather an old alligator may be
seen by day slowly swimming up and
down the middle of the lake, but the
labors of nest-building are accom-
plished in the night, and the frequent
peregrinations of the pair are made
under the cover of darkness. 1t would
have been interesting to watch the fe-
males methods of applying such ap-
parently nl-adapted implements as her
enormous mouth and short legs to the
work of building, but with her
choice Of hours and location she left
me only the privilege of inspecting the
results Of her labors.
Saw grass served as material for the
nest, as we'll as for screen to conceal
it's position, rs feet away from the
water. This grass grows as high as a,
man, and fourishes in shallow water
or upon land that is overfowed during
the rainy season. The blades have
stiffening angle like an caves gutter
made of two boards. The edges are
serrated, and cut through the skin and
flesh like sharp scrollsaw when the
hand is passed downward against them.
It is possible to pass through saw grass
by bending it forward, so that the teeth
draw backward instead Of forward.
The alligator selected dead grass of for
mer years growth, and broke up a mass
of it into small pieces. In this coarse
haycock the eggs were imbedded, and
with the final additions of the material,
the structure was over two feet high.
The heavy and frequent summer rains
soon wet the nest thoroughly, causing
decay and degree of spontaneous
warmth which contributed to the incu-
baton of the eggs. This process, it
appears is a very long one in the case
of alligator eggs, as the nest under OBJ
servation was made in April and the
eggs Matched out the middle of Sep
tember.
After the completion of the nest this
year, the alligators remained in the
other neighboring lakes for the most
part. Only occasionally one of them
might be seen patrolliDg the vicinity
of the nest, like some submarine vessel
with little of its back and PROV above
water. But when the young alligators
were due, the old female reappeared in
our lake, and evidently paid close atten-
ton to the nest. Whenever moved my
boat toward the saw grass at this time
the alligator was there, and retreated
to the middle of the lake without dis
appearing under water, as usual, APP
parently anxious enough to keep her
eye upon me. Now numerous tiny alli-
gators appeared in the grassy water in
front Of the nests, betraying their pres
ence by their infantile croaking, and
the bright yellow stripes of their tails,
which they had not the intelligence to
conceal when hiding the rest of their
bodies. Their length proved to be nine
to ten inches. Upon examining the nest
I found that the old alligator had dug
out the entire heart of the heap. The
fine, half rotten material, damp with
moisture, was scratched out to the front
of the nest, intermixed with fragments
Of the shells and skins of the eggs. 1
found other large pieces of shell in the
water, as if the young ones had carried
them upon their backs, as little chick
ems sometimes do. The sagacious con-
duct of the mother alligator at this
juncture raises her above other reptiles,
which leave eggs and young to work
out their own destines without the at
tention of the parent. Possibly young
alligators would not be able to raise
their heavy covering unaided, and some
of them at least might never emerge
if not delivered by the old one. 1t is
apparent that they do not work their
own way out of the nest, as, if that were
the case, the egg shells would be quite
broken from their bodies and left be-
hind in the heap instead of being
dragged into the water in some cases
almost entire.-Sanford (Fla.) Cor. N.
Y. Post.
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