“The first care of the mother is to get them to the water, where she can better conceal them from their unnatural parent; but, notwithstanding all her precautions, many of them fall victims, both to the old alligators, and the larger tortoises, and birds. As soon as the young ones have learned a little sense, if I may so speak, they elude their monster fathers and uncles, as they are nimbler in their movements, and can keep out of reach of their great jaws and tails. I have often seen the small alligators riding upon the backs of the larger ones, knowing that the latter could not reach them in that situation.”
“They appear to eat anything that comes in their way,” remarked François.
“They are not very particular as to that. Fish is their favourite food, I believe, but they will eat any land animal they can kill; and it is believed they prefer it in a state of putrefaction. That is a doubtful point. They have been known to kill large animals in the water, and leave them at the bottom for several days; but this may have happened because they were not hungry at the time, and were merely keeping them until they should get an appetite. The process of digestion with them, as with all reptiles, is very slow; hence they do not require such quantities of food as the warm-blooded animals—mammals and birds. For instance, they bury themselves in the mud, and lie asleep during the whole winter without any food.”
“You say fish is their favourite food, Luce,” said Basil; “now I think they are fonder of dogs than anything else. I have often known them to come where they had heard the yelping of a dog as if for the purpose of devouring it. I have seen one seize a large dog that was swimming across the Bayou Boeuf, and drag him under, as quick as a trout would have taken a fly. The dog was never seen again.”
“It is very true,” replied Lucien, “that they will eat dogs, as they will any other animals; but their being particularly fond of them is a point about which naturalists differ. It is true they will approach the spot where they hear the yelping of a dog; but some say that this is because it so much resembles the whining of their own young, and that it is these they are in search of.”
“But I have seen both the males and females make towards the dog.”
“Just so. The males went to devour the young, as they thought, and the females followed to protect them. Great battles are often fought between the males and females on this account.”
“But how is it, Luce,” inquired François, “how is it they can catch fish that appear so much swifter than themselves?”
“Very few kinds of fish are swifter. The alligator, by means of his webbed feet, and particularly his flat tail—which acts on the principle of a stern-oar to a boat, and a rudder as well—can pass through the water as swiftly as most of the finny tribe. It is not by hunting it down, however, but by stratagem, that the alligator secures a fish for his maw.”
“By what stratagem?”