Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1893 — The Size of Alligators. [ARTICLE]

The Size of Alligators.

I have seen numerous specimens of our saurian no longer than an ordinary lead pencil, says a writer in the Century; this was in the season of their hatching. I have also seen a few living specimens about sixteen feet in length. In the summer of 1875 I obtained from the late Effingham Lawrence, member of Congress and Commissioner from Louisiana to the Centennial Exhibition, the dried skin of an alligator which,, after at least fifteen inches had been cut from the end of the tail, still measured seventeen feet ten inches in length. Allowing more than six inches by shrinkage in drying, this monster of his kind, alive, must have measured more than twenty feet. He was killed in the lower part of Bayou Lafourche. Probably the largest alligator ever seen in Louisiana was killed in a small lake on the plantation of H. J. Feltus, in Concordia Parish. According to.the statement of Mr. Feltus, now of Baton Rouge, this specimen measured twenty-two feet in length. The great reptile had long been famous for miles around, having destroyed numbers of hogs and hounds owned in the neighborhood oi his retreat. He had become so wary, from the number of ineffectual shots fired at him, as to be almost unapproachable. Finally he fell a victim to a long shot fired from a Mississippi rifle in the hands of Mr. Feltus, who had persevered in hunting him, having been the greatest loser by his depredations. The huge carcass of this reptile was towed to the bank by a boat. It required the strength of a pair of mules and a stout rope to haul it ashore, where the measurement was made with the result noted above.