Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1887 — The Alligator’s Meal. [ARTICLE]

The Alligator’s Meal.

An observer down South says an alligator’s throat is an animated sewer. Everything that lodges 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 bug crawls into it, then .a fly, then several gnats and a colony of mosquitoes. The alligator doesn’t close his mouth yet. He is waiting for a wfiole 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 hop up to catch the mosquitoes. Then more mosquitoes and gnats will light on the frog. Finally a whole village of insects and reptiles settle down for an afternoon picnic. Then all at once there is an earthquake. . The big jaw falls, the alligator blinks one eye, gulps down the entire menagerie, and opens his great front door again for more visitors.