Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1882 — How Alligators Eat. [ARTICLE]

How Alligators Eat.

An alligator’s throat is an animated sewer. Everything which lodges in his open mouth’ goes down. He fs 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 bug crawls into it,

then a fly. then several gnats, and a colony of mosquitoes. The alligator don’t close his mouth yet He is waiting for a whole drove of things. He 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 catch the mosquitoes. Then more mosquitoes and gnats will alight on the frogs. Finally a whole village of reptiles and insects settle down for an afternoon picnio. Then, all at once, there is an earthquake. The big iaw falls, the alligator blinks one eye, gulps down the entire menagerie, and opens his great front door again for more visitors. ”