THE HABITS OF ALLIGATORS.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 235, 31 December 1887, Page 4

THE HABITS OF ALLIGATORS.

A correspondent "down South " says an alligator's throat is an animated sewer. Everything which lands in his open mouth goes down. He is a lazy dog, and instead of hunting for something to eat he lets his victuals hunt for him. • That is, he lies with his great mouth open, apparently dead, like the possum. Soon a beetle crawls into ib, then a fly, then several gnats, and a colony of mosquitoes. The alligator doeßn't close his mouth yet. He is waiting for a whole drove of things, ile does his eating by wholesale. A little later a lizard will cool himself under the shade of , the upper jaw. Then a few frogs will hop up to catch the mosquitoes. Then more mosquitoes and gnats will alight on the frogs. Finally a whole village of insects and reptiles settle down for an afternoon picnic, Then all at once there is an earthquake.' l The big jaw falls ; the alligator blinks one eye, ' gulps" down the entire menagerie, and' opens his great front door again for more visitors;

Successful Iscitbation. — Mr King has had wonderful success with his hatching operations this season, He has had in use one of Francis's automatic incubators, and out of ''67 fertile duck eggs 59 ducklings were successfully hatched, and four others died in the shell- when just on the point of (joining., out. He Ma since brought out» number of! chickens inJ'the same machinej with a small percentage. of loßs,?>and the' phickensare thriving well up to the present writing, when, they are just ten daysold.* The .trouble we fear will comfe later on, if at* all. Ono^setting of hen. eggs came > out j without a 'single ' miss', as we • understand. '$r King is especially agreeably, surprised • ajj' his .success,; because The knew 1 -nothing' of the management of ..an incuba- , bought 1 tihis one. ;<~f f « ' - ( -