The young avoid the larger males until they are strong enough to protect themselves, feeding in the mean time upon fish and flesh of every description. In the water they move with agility, but on land their long bodies and short legs prevent rapid motion. They migrate during droughts from one slough or bayou to another, crossing the intervening upland. When discovered on these journeys by man, the alligator feigns death, or at least appears to be in an unconscious state; but if an antagonist approach within reach of that terrible tail, a blow, a sweep, and a snapping together of the jaws prove conclusively his dangerous character. He is a good fisherman, and can also catch ducks, drawing them by their feet under water. The dog is, however, the favorite diet of these saurians, and the negroes make use of a crying puppy to allure the creature from the bottom of a shoal bayou within reach of their guns. Though clad in a coat of thick, bony scales, a well-directed charge of buckshot from a gun, or a lead ball from a musket, will penetrate the body, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary. The negroes in the Gulf states say that "de 'gators swallows a pine knot afore dey goes into de mud-burrows for de winter;" and the fact that pine knots and pieces of wood are found in the stomachs of these animals at all seasons of the year, gives a shade of truth to this statement. Even the hardest substances, such as stones and broken bottles, are taken in considerable quantities from the bodies of dead alligators. Their digestive organs are certainly not sensitive, their nervous systems not delicate, and their intelligence not remarkable. It gives an alligator but little inconvenience to shoot off a portion of his head with a mass of the brain attached to it; and they have been known to fight for hours with the entire brain removed. Though generally fleeing from man upon terra firma, the alligator will quickly attack him in the water. A friend of mine, mounted upon his horse, was crossing a Florida river in the wilderness, when entering the channel of the stream, the horse's feet did not touch the bottom, and he swam for a moment or two, struggling with the current. My friend suddenly felt a severe grip upon his leg, and the pressure of sharp teeth through his trousers, when, realizing in a flash that an alligator's jaws were fastened upon him, he clasped the neck of his horse with all his strength. For a few seconds he was in danger of being dragged from the back of his faithful animal; but his dog, following in the rear, gained quickly on the struggling horse, and the alligator, true to his well-known taste, loosed his hold upon the man, and catching the dog in his strong jaws, dragged the poor brute to the bottom of the river.