HOW THEY CATCH ALLIGATORS IN NEW GRENADA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 117, 19 May 1871, Page 4

HOW THEY CATCH ALLIGATORS IN NEW GRENADA.

We bave at least sixty travellers in one carriage, and amongst them is a lady who is anxious to kuow if the natives catch the alligators, and if so* by what process tbeyare caught. A gentleman seated in front of us volunteers gave some information on the subject. "They are generally caught, madam, by tickling them," said he. "How very extraordinary ! " exclaimed the lady. " Pray explain how the nasty creatures are captured. It must be a singular operation." " Very singular, indeed, madam," replies the gentleman, closing one of his eyes as he speaks. " Them alligators are queerly made critturs, aud they have queer fancies. If you look aVone of them, you will see that he has spines upon j his tail. Examine their spines, and you will see the last one at the end of the tail t"6' be the largest, to be very sharp and strong, and curved back towards the head of the crittuv like a*- hook. ' Now alligators, madam, are very slee.py j things. Always going to sleep in the mud. The brown-skin gentlemen who live hereabouts go out to catch them with a cane and a long pole. When they see one asleep they tickle the point of his tail very gently with the cave, so as not to wake him. The alligator feels il, and turns his tail away from the tickle. Then they tickle it a little more, and it \urhs it further away, curving it shorter round, as you see. They go on tickliug, and the crittuv goes ou bending round His tail till he gets it right opposite his mouth. Then they give it a hard tickle. The crittur wakes, opens his mouth, snaps at his own tail, geirf the point of it between its jaws, aud the hooked spiue driven clean down its palate. It has just made itself into a ring, yon see, and cant't help its tail out again. The naiives have tickled it enough. All they've m>\. to do is to put the long pole through ihe ring the crittur has made itself into, hoist the two ends of the pole on their shoulders, take the crittur home and kill it quietly. It's a scientific way of catching them, but it's very satisfactory." — The Genial Showman, by E. P. Hingston. A •

A correspondent writes from Paris during the siege : — The only -every fat butcher's meat I see is dog. It vrqs my fate to eat some mutton broth the other day — that is, dog broth with a dog cutlet in it. The cutlet was fat, and in passing by a butcher's stall to-day in the market St. Honore I was struck with the beauty of a saddle of mutton. Never after the cattle show in London have I seen a fatter saddle of mutton — it was a saddle of dog at three-shillings a pound. Yes, people eat their dogs here with touching devotion. It is even said tJ^at a little lady here gave up her precious lap--dog Bijou to be eaten. Bijou was killed.; Bijou was cooked ; Bijou was eateu. And Bijou's mistress was observed at dinner "t'o.^ put Bijou's bones aside on her plate mechanically, and was heard to remark, with a sigh — "Oh, how my dear Bijou would have enjoyed these booes!" An unsuccessful politician says that the most difficult vacancies for him to fill are the vacancies in his own family'sstomachs.