THE ALLIGATOR.

Patea Mail, 26 October 1880, Page 3

THE ALLIGATOR.

Various men have written various tilings regarding the alligator, but we are not bound to believe any of them. He is classed as a reptile, but we can put him in any other class we think best, this being a free country. For hundreds of years the wise men of the world vainly tried to find out what alligators were made for. Some supposed they were a parlour ornament on legs ; others contended that their mission was to tow sawlogs up and down ; and many persons firmly believe that the reptile has no other aim in life than to get hold of the juicy heel of a runaway darkey. We shall divide the alligator into severa sections in order to study his different points. The head comes first. It is one part head and two parts mouth, this chap being the only living thing that can open his month as far as he wants to. The jaws arc built on the sawmill principle. While one is working, the other is resting and getting ready for a soft snap. No one ever experimented to see just how strong an alligator was in his jaws, but when they have been seen to crunch the end of a saw-log, and bend a crow-bar double, yon may take it for granted that a small boy’s shoulder blades wouldn’t stop their teeth very long. Their tooth are numerous, and made on honour. They not only use them to pick up tender infants lost overboard, but to haul prosy old spotted cows off the river bank and put them beyond further pain and sorrow. When an alligator gets a fair bold of yon, there is only one tiling to do—call for the police. —American paper.