Our alligator inhabits the rivers and swampy districts of the southern states.  I have never heard of their being found north of the Neuse River, though they probably ascend in small numbers some of the numerous rivers and creeks of the northern side of Albemarle Sound in North Carolina.  The bayous and swamps of Louisiana and the low districts of Florida are particularly infested with these animals.  The frequent visits of man to their haunts makes them timid of his presence; but where he is rarely or never seen, the larger alligators become more dangerous.  During warm, sunny days this reptile delights in basking in the sunlight upon the bank of a stream for hours at a time.  At the approach of man he crawls or slides from his slimy bed into the water, but if his retreat be cut off; or he become excited, a powerful odor of musk exudes from his body.  During the winter months he hibernates in the mud of the bayous for days and weeks at a time.  When the alligator enters the water, a pair of lips or valves close tightly, hermetically sealing his ears so that even moisture cannot penetrate them.  His nostrils are protected in the same way.

As the season for incubation approaches, the female searches for a sandy spot, and digging a hole with her fore-feet, deposits there her eggs, which are somewhat smaller than those of a goose.  They are usually placed in layers, carefully covered up in the sand, and if not disturbed by wild animals, are hatched by the heat of the sun.  It frequently happens that the alligator cannot find a sand-bank in which to place her eggs, and on such occasions she scrapes together with her fore-feet grass, leaves, bark, and sticks, mixed with mud, and converting the whole into a low platform, deposits the eggs upon it in separate layers, each layer being sandwiched with the mixture of mud, sticks, &c., until more than one hundred white eggs, of a faint green tint, are carefully stowed away in the nest.

The exterior of the nest, which has a mound-like character, is daubed over with mud, the tail of the alligator being used as a trowel.  The first duties of maternity being over, the female alligator acts as policeman until the eggs are hatched.  Her office is not a sinecure, for the fowls of the air, and the creeping things upon earth, are attracted to the entombed delicacies secreted in this oven-like structure in the swamp.  Many a luckless coon and cracker’s pig searching for a breakfast, receive instead a blow from the strong tail of the female alligator, and are swept into the grasp of her terrible and relentless jaws.

Moisture and heat act their parts in assisting the process of incubation, and the little alligators, a few inches in length, issue from the shell, and are welcomed by their mail-clad mother into the new world.