_Breeding Habits._ Judging from the statements of native hunters the laying season of the alligator might be thought to be at any time from January to September. As a matter of fact the month of June is the time when most, if not all, of the eggs are laid. S. F. Clarke gives June 9th and June 17th as the limits of the laying season in Florida, but I found at least one nest in which eggs were laid as late as June 26th: no eggs were found before the first date given by Clarke. It seemed quite certain that the laying, during the season in question, had been delayed by an extreme drought that had dried up the smaller swamps and reduced the alligator holes to mere puddles. Nests were found in considerable numbers as early as June 8th, but no eggs were laid in any of them until the end of the dry period which occurred nearly two weeks later. Almost immediately after the occurrence of the rains that filled up the swamps eggs were deposited in all of the nests at about the same time. From the fact that all of these completed nests had stood for so long a time without eggs, and from the fact that all of the eggs from these nests contained embryos in a well-advanced state of development, it seemed evident that the egg-laying had been delayed by the unusually dry weather. Eggs taken directly from the oviducts of an alligator that was killed at this time also contained embryos that had already passed through the earlier stages of development. Thus it was that the earliest stages of development were not obtained during this summer. It is said that during the mating season, which precedes by some time, of course, the laying season, the males are noisy and quarrelsome, and that they exhibit sexual characteristics of color by which they may be distinguished from the females. Never having been in the alligator country at this season, the writer has made no personal observations along these lines, but from the frequency with which alligators with mutilated or missing members are found it is evident that fierce encounters must sometimes take place, whatever the cause. During June and July, at least, and probably during most of the year, the alligators are very silent, an occasional bellow during the very early morning hours being the only audible evidence that one has that the big reptiles are in the neighborhood. Whatever may be the sexual differences during the mating season, at ordinary times the two sexes are so much alike that I have, on more than one occasion, seen experienced hunters disagree as to the supposed sex of an alligator that had just been killed. Although I have never seen a nest actually during the process of construction, it is easy to imagine, after the examination of a large number of freshly made nests, what the process must be like.