THE QUEENSLAND ALLIGATOR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 123, 25 May 1881, Page 4

THE QUEENSLAND ALLIGATOR.

A [contribotor to the Queen&lander reports: — We are now in the n!lig»tor'a nursery month, and a veritable nursery of the £ent!e race are the banks of (he Fitzroy just nt present. Ifc is very interesting to a naturalist to have a couple of alligators' nests close to his own share of the bunk, but in such coses it is well to be wary for the scaly mothers camp alongside and arek their food in the immediate neighborhood. The eggs of odd of tfcese costs fell into the hands of some roaming blacks, and great was the gusto with which they de voured the dainty chicks within, <l 0 Jbrlunati ninrium," &;. The olhei nest was arranged thus — a level part of the bank having been slightly prepared, a quantity of litter, chiefly grass, was at first laid down; on this were deposited a moiety of {he eggs in rows eide by eide; these were covered with grass, a second layer of eggs in similar order was followed by another course of litter? 0 third tier of eggs with m covering of prase completed the heap of sixty eggs, which now received its outside coat of soil scraped up over 0i1... A nest reported to me some lime ago was more elaborate in its construction, though it contained but twenty-two eggp. In this, sticks laid as in 0 hawk's nest, grass, eggp, grass en* sticks, again succeeded each other The mound so raised was covered with sand, and finally the whole was npatly plastered over with mud. A canoe shaped trough was excavated at the foot of the mound, end was half-full <f water and mud puddled up together. This was supposed to-be the source of the plaster. The pressure of the heap is counteracted by the great hardness of the eggeheUj the egg itself, though scarcely larger than a goose egg, beiog perfectly ovol, baa a much greater capacity, end the young alligator is at birth a formidable enemy to small fry. The females breed when 9ft long— how much earlier 1 cannot yet say. The finder of the eix'y eggp, seeing in them colonial produce and an opening fo business, transferred them to nu artificial nest, and, allowing them to hatch, vended young alligators in the beet spirits at 5$ a bottle.