A LIVING ISLAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 2

A LIVING ISLAND.

The alligator is not in anyway an attractive animal. On the contraiy, it ia about as repellent in looks and disposition as any living creature very well can bo And yet, in one respect, at lea?t, it is to be envied : Ie can go through life without ever needing a dentist, unless it be to eat him ; for it never keep? its teeth long enough to give them any chance to decay or ache or get out of order in any woy. When an alligator's tooth is worn out or broken or in need of any kind of repair, it drops out, and behold ! a new one is ready to take its place. But I hardly need say that the alligator's teeth are a joy only to itself. Another peculiarity of the alligator is its ability to sleep. Like other reptiles, it ia so cold-blooded that it likes warmth and hates cold. It needs water, too, and a% the dry season and the cool season come on together in Florida, there is a double reason why the Florida alligator should go into winter quarters. It buries itself in the mud after the manner of its kind and eottles down for a long nap. Sometimea it happens that grass and quick-growing shrubs spring up on the back of thiß torpid animal. Ac a rule these arc all shaken or washed off, when, with the first warm rains, tho alligator rouses itself and makes for the water; but occasionally, for some reason, the mud clings and with it the plant-growth' po that when the halfawakened creature slides into tho water rind' floats stupidly off it looks like a floating island. In one such instance a plover was so deceived as to build ita nesfc in the plant growth on the alligator's back. Tho living island so freighted floated slowly down the stream until it was noticed by a party of boys who were out fishing. They paw the plover rise from the little island, and suspecting a nest to be there, they gave up their fishing and rowed out to it. They never suspected the nature of the island until they had bumped their boat rather rudely into it once or twice, and so vexed the alligator that it opened its huge mouth with a startling suddenness that brought a chorus of yells from the no?t-robbers, and sent them off in a fit mood to sympathise with the plover, which was fluttering about and crying piteouslv at the raid upon its ne&t. The poor bird was doomed to lose its nest, however, for the alligator, having at last been thoioughly aroused, discovered how hungry it was, and dived down in search of food, thus washing off island, nest and all.—" St. Nicholas."

" What station do you call this ?" asked a man as he crawled out of the ruins of a car, after a recent railroad accident. " Devastation, sir," replied his fellowpassengers in chorus.