to breathe, with one
leg of the man sticking out from its jaws. It was immediately
despatched, with bitter curses.

One night Bates and his party were asleep in their hammocks in an open
shed on the banks of the river, with a fire made up in the centre. He
was awoke by his attendants hurling burning firewood, with loud curses,
at a huge cayman which had crawled up the bank, and passed beneath his
hammock towards the place where a little dog lay asleep. The dog had
raised the alarm in time. The reptile backed out, and tumbled down the
bank into the water, the sparks of the brands hurled at him flying from
his back and sides. Notwithstanding this, the next night he repeated
his visit.

The alligator, in its daring attempts to seize human beings, does not
always come off victorious. An Indian and his son had gone down to the
water, when the boy, whilst bathing, was seized by the thigh, and
carried under. The father, rushing down the bank, plunged after the
rapacious beast, which was diving away with its victim. He followed it
unarmed, and overtaking the creature, thrust his thumb into its eye, and
forced it to release its booty. The lad, who was present when the story
was told, exhibited the marks of the alligator's teeth in his thigh.

On another occasion an alligator was shot by one of the passengers on
board a steamer, and hauled up on deck. When the knife was applied, it
showed that it still possessed some sparks of life, by lashing out its
tail, and opening its enormous jaws, sending the crowd of bystanders
flying in all directions. It is extraordinary how tenacious the
creature is of life, and what a prodigious amount of battering it may
receive and still live.

Fortunately for other animals, the young alligators have numerous
enemies, even the males of their own kind occasionally gobbling them up;
while they are terribly persecuted by wild beasts and birds of prey,--
the latter esteeming their soft bodies delicate morsels, and frequently
pouncing down into their midst and carrying them off.

The alligator, far from being a silent animal, as is generally supposed,
makes a hideous noise at times, bellowing with so singular a cadence and
loud a din, that he can even outroar the jaguars and mycetes.

Sir Richard Schombergh describes the way in which the alligator seizes
its prey. He secured a bird or fish to a piece of wood, and then turned
it adrift on the river. No sooner was it seen than a cayman,