The wild-beast tamer then motioned me away from the serpent cages, and we went to those of their cousins, the crocodiles and alligators. We passed by an aviary of very great size, where parrots and other beautifully plumed birds chattered, laughed, quarrelled, and made love in a long, ear-piercing enjoyment of their captivity; and further on we came to a large tank, in which were slowly paddling round some spiteful-looking alligators--huge-jawed, soulless-eyed, each one a waiting, watching destroyer of life. [Illustration: KARL HAGENBECK'S FATHER AND HIS FIRST SHOW IN BERLIN.] We looked at them for a little while, and then Mr. Hagenbeck said: "Once I had to pack sixteen of these fellows up for the Düsseldorf Zoölogical Gardens. I grappled hold of the first one and was pulling him ashore, when he gave me a frightful blow with his tail and knocked me into the tank, where, for a brief moment, I was alone with fifteen alligators. Those who were standing by told me that as soon as I splashed in a number of them made a rush, but I was out again like an India-rubber ball. The swirl of the water and the open jaws of the disappointed beasts told me that I had not been one second too smart. This was a very narrow escape, as, if one of the crocodiles had happened to get hold of me, all the rest would have attacked me, snapping and biting at me at one and the same moment, until there would have been little, if anything, left of me at all. They are the most determined fighters even amongst themselves. Six of them, each about fourteen feet long, had a fight amongst themselves once, and so desperately did they set to, that within fourteen days they were all dead. Three of them had their jaws broken, and in some cases their legs were torn right out of their bodies. This occurred at night, and one of the keepers, happening to hear the frightful noise which was made by the clashing of their jaws, rushed off to tell me what was happening. We lit our lanterns and hurried to the scene of action, but, beyond trying to separate them with long poles, it was little we could do. When we managed to part them for a time they only renewed the fight with greater fierceness than ever, and so terribly were they wounded, that, as I said, they were all dead in a fortnight. Nowadays, when I get a new consignment of alligators I always muzzle them for four days with a rope. They then calm down, and I cut the rope off; otherwise, if I did not do that they would begin fighting as soon as they came out of the box, for the first sight of day-light after the long journey always seems to excite them. A fight amongst the snakes, also, is a terrible thing. I had once five big pythons in one cage. One of the keepers flung a dead rabbit amongst them, and two of them, being very hungry, attacked it at once. At the same moment the other four flew for the prey, and in one moment all the six were in one big writhing lump. The keepers fetched me, and I at once attempted to uncoil them.