My boat was tied alongside the bank of the creek, close to the palmetto huts. There were only two feet of water in the stream as I sat in the little sneak-box at midnight and went through the usual preparations for stowing my self away for the night. I touched the clear water with my hands as it laved the sides of my floating home, but my gaze could not penetrate the limpid current, for the heavy shades of the palms gave it a dark hue. I thought of the duties of the morrow, and also of poor Saddles, who was tossing uneasily upon the blankets in his tent near by, when there was a mysterious movement in the water under the boat. Some thing unusual was there, for its presence was betrayed by the large bubbles of air which came up from the bottom and floated upon the surface of the water. Being too sleepy to make an investigation, I coiled myself in my nest, and drew the hatch-cover over the hold. The next morning my friends clustered on the bank, giving me a kind farewell as I pushed the duck-boat gently into the channel of the creek. Suddenly Saddles, who had been gazing abstractedly into the water under my boat, hurried into the tent, and in an instant reappeared with the gun I had given him in his hands. He slowly pointed it at the spot in the water where my boat had been moored during the night, and drawing the trigger, an explosion followed, while the water flew upward in fine jets into the air. Then, to the astonished gaze of the party on the bank, an alligator as long as my boat arose to view, and, roused by the shock, hurried into deeper water. [Parting with Saddles.] It was now evident what the lodger under my boat had been, and I confess the thought of being separated from this fierce saurian by only half an inch of cedar sheathing during a long night, was not a pleasant one; and I shuddered while my imagination pictured the consequences of a nocturnal bath in which I might have indulged. Having observed in different countries the habits of some of the individuals which compose the order SAURIA,--the lizards,--I will present to the reader what I have gleaned from my observation upon two species, one of which is the true alligator (A. Mississippiensis), the other the well-known true crocodile (C. acutus), which recently has been declared an inhabitant of the United States. It is only a few years since it was found living on the North American continent, for previous to its discovery in southern Florida, its nearest known habitat to the United States was the island of Cuba.