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More "Alligator" Quotes from Famous Books



... worn him to the bones: And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuffed, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes. Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... she answered. "Look at this place! Nothing tidied up yet and the day half through! Did you put the alligator on ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... small chance here of any refreshments; but my fishers from the other side of the bay told me of having seen great store of beasts bones, and bones certainly have once had flesh. George Evans, one of the Hector's men, was severely bitten by an alegarta, [alligator.] I gave orders to fill our water casks with all speed, and propose in the mean time to seek for refreshment. The tide flows here nearest east,[161] and rises high. The 21st we saw four natives, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... you," the President replied; "persons from up here go all the way to Florida just to see a live alligator"—and so he put ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... starting, and did not even inquire where Miss Harleth was gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that was mingled with much distrust; for Grandcourt had said no word to him about her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling what might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. Still, to have put off a decision was to have made room for the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... trousers, boots, straw hats, two shirts, and jean hunting shirts—all thin, to be sure, but warm and comfortable enough for a day's hunt. We trudged about until noon, firing but once, and then at an alligator in a bayou, whose coat of mail laughed to scorn our puny bullets, and, barely flirting his horny tail in contempt, he slid from his perch back into the greasy and turbid stream. Seating ourselves upon a dead cotton-wood, we made a slight repast upon some cold pone, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... enters the garden carrying his big stick and small net. The garden has been almost destroyed by the ALLIGATOR, who still wallows among ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson

... of such close confinement, I requested the captain to set me on shore. The thing was voted impracticable; but I decided to make the attempt, and was accordingly rowed to the right bank of the river, when I took to the swamp, hungry and savage enough to have eaten any alligator fool-hardy enough to assail me. After a hard scramble, together with two or three plunges waist deep, I escaped suffocation, and gained one of the banks dividing and draining these vast fields: following this, unimpeded by other difficulty, I reached, after half an hour's march, the high land; ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... went to the window, the moon was at the full. She was standing by the gate, her head inside the garden; I took it her anxiety was lest we might miss any of it. Her neck was stretched out straight, her eyes towards the sky; which gave to her the appearance of a long-eared alligator. I have never had much to do with cows. I don't know how you talk to them. I told her to "be quiet," and to "lie down"; and made pretence to throw a boot at her. It seemed to cheer her, having an audience; she added half a dozen ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... replied Mrs. Quack. "Some folks call him Alligator and some just 'Gator, but we call him Old Ally. He's a very interesting old fellow. Some time perhaps I'll tell you more about him. Mr. Quack and I kept out of his reach, you may be sure. We lived quietly and tried to get in as good condition as possible for the long journey back to our ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess

... the way with all of them. Show me any Creole, or any number of Creoles, in any sort of contest, and right down at the foundation of it all, I will find you this same preposterous, apathetic, fantastic, suicidal pride. It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator. That is why the Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive. See these De Grapions' haughty good manners to old Agricole; yet there wasn't a Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De Grapion lands but at ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... the sea monster, which devoured six of the rowers of Ulysses, M. Salverte, a recent compiler on the marvellous, is tempted to regard as an overgrown polypus magnified by the optical power of poetry, though we are disposed to give the credit to an alligator, or its mate, a crocodile; and this occurrence is not so fictitiously represented, as it is ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... "I should have been a supper for an alligator to-night if you hadn't stuck to me. Those murdering rogues would have beaten me under easy enough, even if I hadn't been drowned before giving them the trouble. I've got to thank ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... was that "the black man has no rights the white man is bound to respect;" or, as Stephen A. Douglas defined his position before an applauding audience, "I am for the white man as against the black man, and for the black man against the alligator." Recent lynching and shotgun experiences, too fresh in memory to call for reminder, and too painful in detail to describe, give us at least reason to pause before we leave our own hearthstone to ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... powers of nature, animate and inanimate, if the truth be not spoken. This evil may be instantaneous, as sudden death from a fit, or from a flash of lightning; the first food taken may choke the false swearer; or on his way home, a tiger by land, or an alligator by water, may seize and devour him. I have known an instance of this occur, which was spoken of by hundreds as a testimony to the truth of the system. Now it is supposed by Budhists that even an unconscious departure from truth ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... was that of a 'piccinini Kianpraty' was found by Professor Owen to be that of a young calf. The Professor] considers it all but impossible that such a large animal as the bunyup of the natives can be now living in the country. [Mr. Westgarth suspects] it is only a tradition of the alligator ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... meeting attended by a tailor, a pastry-cook, a reporter, two or three barristers, and eight or ten attorneys, are our most formidable annoyances. We have agitators in our own small way, Tritons of the minnows, bearing the same sort of resemblance to O'Connell that a lizard bears to an alligator. Therefore Calcutta for me, in preference ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... something regretful and tearful about Lieutenant Herbert—Herbert! how I had admired that name!—and now, this Ithuriel touch, how it had changed it and him forever to me! What was in a name?—sure enough! As I gazed on the pale face on the couch, I should not have cared, if it had been named Alligator,—so elevated was I beyond all I had thought or called trouble of that sort! so real was the trouble that could affect the feelings, the sensitiveness, of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... with an imitation alligator grip descended first, looked about him apprehensively, and disappeared with speed. A big rancher with great curling moustaches and a vest open save at the bottom button followed. He likewise took stock of the surroundings, and discreetly ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... Alligator.] There is a Creature here called Kobbera guion, resembling an Alligator. The biggest may be five or six foot long, speckled black and white. He lives most upon the Land but will take the water and dive under it: hath a long blew forked tongue like ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... present moment, the menagerie contains a female elephant only, the male having died since my arrival in Paris, three dromedaries, two camels, five lions, male and female, a white bear, a brown bear, a mangousta, a civet, an alligator, an ostrich, and several other scarce and curious animals, the number and variety of which receive frequent additions. In other parts of the garden are inclosures for land and sea fowls, as well as ponds ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... trout. Honey of fine flavour is found in great abundance in the woods about the mouth of the river, and, for aught I know, in every part of the country. You perceive that I am constantly discovering new luxuries for my table. Not having been able to kill a crocodile (alligator), I have offered a reward for one, which I mean to eat, dressed in soup, fricassees, and steaks. Oh! how you long to ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... to meet alone in a narrow strait on a dark night; but if it comes to actual measurement, the very biggest ichthyosaurian skeleton ever unearthed does not exceed twenty-five feet from snout to tail. Now, this is an extremely decent size for a reptile, as reptiles go; for the crocodile and alligator, the two biggest existing lizards, seldom attain an extreme length of sixteen feet. But there are other reptiles now living that easily beat the ichthyosaurus, such, for example, as the larger pythons ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... affair for our paper, giving the small list of guests and the long line of refreshments—which included alligator-pear salad, right out of the Smart Set Cook Book. Moreover, when Jefferson appeared in Topeka that fall, Priscilla Winthrop, who had met him through some of her Duxbury friends in Boston, invited him to run ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... ashore on the north coast or point of Kupang Bay, which is called Babao. Late in the night they returned, and told me that they saw great tracks of buffaloes there, but none of the buffaloes themselves; neither did they find any fresh water. They also saw some green-turtle in the sea and one alligator. ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... yarroman like 'it Hinchinbrook; my word, plenty of alligator sit down along of water. He been parter that fellow like ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... forgotten by her own people. Her house became a Mecca for native men and women, usually performing pilgrimage privily after darkness fell, with presents always in their hands— squid fresh from the reef, opihis and limu, baskets of alligator pears, roasting corn of the earliest from windward Cahu, mangoes and star-apples, taro pink and royal of the finest selection, sucking pigs, banana poi, breadfruit, and crabs caught the very day from Pearl Harbour. Mary Mendana, wife of the Portuguese Consul, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... character in Sheridan's "Rivals," noted for her blunders in the use of fine or learned words, as in the use of "allegory" for "alligator." ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... gentle so de san' lay low, San' a little heavy f'om de rain, All de pa'ms a-wavin' an' a-weavin' slow, Sighin' lak a sinnah-soul in pain. Alligator grinnin' by de ol' lagoon, Mockin'-bird a-singin' to be big full moon. 'Skeeter go a-skimmin' to his fightin' chune (Lizy Ann's a-waitin' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... Collingwood is up, with his wife, and will be coming around from his hotel in a few minutes. He'll do for a chaperon. Meanwhile"—I held out the rose—"I wish you all happiness from the bottom of my heart. . . . When is it to be?—and shall I be in time with an alligator for a wedding present?" ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... returned to England after a year's wanderings in the southern hemisphere, and had arrived at the moat-house on the previous day, bringing with him a dried alligator's head with gaping jaws, a collection of rare stuffed birds and snakeskins for Phil, who had a taste in that direction, and a carved tiki god for Miss Heredith. He had also brought with him his Chinese servant, two kea parrots, and a mat ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... silently, and sometimes like an avalanche. He swam alone in the deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living creature, except possibly the catfish that burrow in the mud, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... considerable quantity of salt, sometimes as much as half a bushel, is thrown into the hole which receives the nut. Among the plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain, the mammee-apple, and alligator-pear (Laurus persea), alone have the property of the cocoa-tree; that of being watered equally well with fresh and salt water. This circumstance is favourable to their migrations; and if the sugarcane of the sea-shore yield a syrup that is a little brackish, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... eggs from it, which were laid at a depth of nearly two feet from the surface— the mother first excavating a hole and afterwards, covering it up with sand. The place is discoverable only by following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... old gold satin, with hollyhocks, for the King to carry at the head of his troops when he went to battle; also a hat-band for the Prince of Egypt. This last was sent by a special courier with a large escort, and the Prince sent an exquisite shopping-bag of real alligator's skin to Drusilla in return. She was the envy of the whole seminary ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... Marcia has just been here and has asked Father to let Helen go with her to Florida. Isn't that lovely? Uncle William said he wished he could take us all, but I don't believe Aunt Marcia does. Louise and I wish we could go. Aleck wants Helen to bring him an alligator. Another thing we have to tell you is that Louise went to hear Patti sing, with Mr. Caruth. He was going to take Cousin Helen, but she was sick, so he came and asked Louise if she would go instead. Aunt Marcia said it was a great compliment to such a little ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... cataracts, prairies, and inland seas were to find in him their antitype and voice. Shaggy he was to be, brown-fisted, careless of proprieties, unhampered by tradition, his Pegasus of the half-horse, half-alligator breed. By him at last the epos of the New World was to be fitly sung, the great tragi-comedy of democracy put upon the stage for all time. It was a cheap vision, for it cost no thought; and, like all ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said, ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... seems to be the Upper Old Red of the United States has exhibited the foot-tracks of a larger animal of the same class, which not a little resemble those which would be impressed on recent sand or clay by the alligator of the Mississippi, did not the alligator of the Mississippi efface its own footprints (a consequence of the shortness of its legs) by the trail of its abdomen. In the Coal Measures, the reptiles hitherto found,—and it is still little more than ten years since the first was detected,—are ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... of Death' got to be such a scourge of the seas that half a dozen men-of-war were sent out by England, Spain and Portugal to try to catch her. But she was the fleetest ship on the ocean, and she always gave them the slip. Once she got caught in a tight place, between Rum Island and Alligator Key. The pursuer was a Portuguese man-of-war, and the pirate vessel turned and fought so fiercely that the enemy was put ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... of the West Indian swamps. Though it is of the colour of coffee, or rather of dark beer, and so impregnated with gases that it produces fever or cholera when drunk, yet it is—at least when it does not mingle with the salt water—so clear, that one might see every marking on a boa- constrictor or alligator, if he glided along the ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... fancy. You've been thinking and dreaming of Ingolby. He's done. He's a back number. There's nothing he's done that isn't on the tumble since last night. The financial gang that he downed are out already against him. They'll have his economic blood. He made a splash while he was at it, but the alligator's got him. It's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... him But for the colored folk That here obtain And ne'er in vain That wizard's art invoke; For when the Eye that's Evil Would him and his'n damn, The negro's grief gets quick relief Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam. With the caul of an alligator, The plume of an unborn loon, And the poison wrung From a serpent's tongue By the ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... Tracy and not a grain of German in him, 'but very nice, very nice; and you are his grandmother, too, and I am his grandfather, whom he once called an old crazy man because I wouldn't let him play in my room with a little alligator which his Aunt Dolly sent him ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... dimly discernible; not articles of furniture, for these are few, but things appertaining to the craft in which Shebotha is supposed to have skill—demonology. There are the bones and skins of monkeys, with those of snakes, lizards, and other reptiles; teeth of the alligator and jaguar; the proboscis-like snouts of the tapir and tamanoir, or great ant-bear, with a variety of other like oddities, furnished by the indigenous creatures of the Chaco in every department of the zoological world—birds, quadrupeds, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... bank in despair and buried his face in his hands. He understood now, the meaning of the splash he had heard during the night. A curious alligator had upset the light craft with its nose or a flirt of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... now had an opportunity to observe, was a fish of full one third the length of the whale itself, and of enormous bulk in proportion; it was covered with a dark rough skin, in appearance not unlike that of an alligator. The cachelot rushed upon its foes alternately, and the one thus singled out invariably fled, until the other had an opportunity to come to its assistance; the sword-fish swimming around in a wide circle at the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... the eastern bank of the stream was a clump of small trees and reeds which I walked up to examine with a desire to recognise any trees belonging to known species, but to my horror, on looking into the reeds, I saw what appeared to be a huge alligator fast asleep. The men now peeped at it and all agreed that it was an alligator. I therefore retreated to a respectful and suitable distance and let fly at it with a rifle; it gave, as we thought, a kind of shake, and then took no further notice of us. I therefore took a double-barrelled ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... like preconcerted mutiny. However, I don't mind if I do let you go, but have a care, Glynn, that you don't lose sight of her for a moment, and keep to the shore and the settlements. I've no notion of allowing her to be swallowed by an alligator, or trampled on by an elephant, or run away with by ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a young fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near enough to spring their man-trap on the curious experimenter. At Wood-End there were some Indians, ill-conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making baskets, the miracle of which was that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... a large alligator, about twenty feet long, rising to the surface of the water, close to our camp. He appeared to be attentively watching our sheep, which were feeding by the side of the river, on the Dolichos and Ipomoeas which were growing on the sand. ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... tarnal, pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter 'the Old Country,' would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... stuffed alligator swung from the ceiling, and the lighting of the room was effected by means of two or three swinging lamps, that burnt dimly blue, and made the place look sepulchral enough to satisfy the most morbid ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... once more reasserts itself—we find in Western Australia, the Swan, the Irwin, the Greenough, the Murchison, and the Gascoyne, the Ashburton, the Fortescue, the De Grey, and another Fitzroy. On the north coast, we meet with the Victoria, the Daly, the Adelaide, the Alligator, the Liverpool, the Roper, the Limmen Bight, the Macarthur, the Robinson and the Calvert, the Albert—which is the outlet for the Nicholson and the Gregory—the Leichhardt and the Flinders, the Norman, the Gilbert, the Einesleigh, the Mitchell, the Archer, the Jardine, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... gesture, the porters advanced in line, like the Three Graces; and counting rapidly, I made out that their load consisted of one good-sized "Innovation" cabin box, two enormous alligator-skin dressing bags, one small bag, and two capacious hold-alls, ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his alligator-skin grip, and took out a Bible and a new self-cocking weepon that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one of the bull-dog variety, and had the laugh of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... rocking-chair, which stood on the verandah. Bananas with their great ragged leaves, like the tattered habiliments of an empress in adversity, grew close up to the house. There was a tree just behind which bore alligator pears, and all about were the cocoa-nuts which gave the land its revenue. Ata's father had planted crotons round his property, and they grew in coloured profusion, gay and brilliant; they fenced the land with flame. A mango grew in front of the house, and at the edge of the clearing were ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... knew about Dunsany and georgette and alligator pears; and Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks' Club, up above Schirmer's furniture store on Elm Street, at about five in the afternoon on his way home from the cold-storage ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... and Shawneetown, whilst "gliding merrily down the Ohio" in a keel-boat, "navigated by eight or ten of those half-horse and half-alligator gentry commonly called Ohio boatmen," Judge Hall was lulled to sweet sleep, as the rowers were "tugging at the oar," timing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... Crocodiles, Turtles, Lizards and Snakes. It is commonly said that reptiles are cold-blooded. This means that the temperature of their blood varies and is the same as the surrounding medium. The temperature of an Alligator that has been floating with its nose out of the water is the same as the surrounding water. The temperature of a turtle in the winter time is the same as the mud in which it is buried, while in ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... of the Diocesan School at Amherst near Rangoon, and her pupils were bathing in the sea when one of them was bitten in the leg by a shark or alligator. Alarmed by this terrible shock she lost her balance and was being carried away by the tide when her sister and the head mistress both went to the rescue. Miss Grace Darling had succeeded in getting hold ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... wise to wade waist or knee deep in a Sunderbunds creek, and clear a boat with a yo-heave-ho, for fear of some festive mugger, which means alligator, lurking in the mud. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... you are going to have trouble," he said, as I locked the alligator bag. "Darned if I like starting anything ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... it, is not to be dreamt of; and our residence, as far as I can learn, is to be a half-furnished house in the midst of rice-swamps, where our habitual company will be our slaves, and our occasional visitors an alligator or two from ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... evergreen trees could we see, for the shore on either hand was completely hidden by the dense growth that hung over and touched the water. On a mud bar that we passed a huge alligator lay, taking a sun bath, and though many shots were fired at him he moved away very leisurely. No one could get on shore without first clearing a road through the thick brushes and vines along the bank. On the way one of our boatmen lost his hat, his only ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... daughter of Bald Eagle and White Rock, his wife. Inside the cavern, if you look carefully, there is to be seen the outline of the lovely face of Snow Bird on the great stone wall. There are a Wigwam, and an Iceberg, an Alligator, and the Golden Horseshoe and Balcony of the Metropolitan, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... autograph albums. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in the morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful, new-born star, to find his front yard full of albums. Some of them were little red albums with floral decorations on them, while others were the large plush and alligator albums of the affluent. Some were new and had the price-mark still on them, while others were old, foundered albums, with a droop in the back and little flecks of egg and gravy on the title-page. All came with a request for Galileo "to write ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... passage for Paul on a Northern bound boat and bought him many little presents ere wishing him God speed. Among them and prized most highly, were two red birds and a young alligator. At five o'clock that evening came the order: "All aboard! Haul in your gang- planks!" Just then a weird musical chant was struck up by the slaves working on the levee, which was answered by the boat's crew, as she backed out into the river and headed away on her long northern trip. Paul had ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... and at it agin, as hard as he could lay on. I believe in my soul he would have nearly killed me, if it hadn't a been for a great big nigger wench he had, called Rose. My! what a slashin' large woman, that was; half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the mammoth in her. She wore a man's hat and jacket, and her petticoat had stuff enough in it to make the mainsail of a boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... up the Mississippi River, reaching Buck Island (No. 52) on the next day, and searched it as ordered. Returned to the levee at Helena the same night, and lay there. Next day, the 15th, went up the St. Francis River, some thirty-five miles, to Alligator Bayou, then returned to Helena and into camp again. The Mississippi River part of this trip was under command of Captain Schoenemann, and the other under that of the major of cavalry. No guerrillas or other enemies were seen. The infantry forces did not land, but the cavalry ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill

... take a paper from his pocket and write an answer, which he delivered to the Indian, who, without stopping to rest, recrossed the river. Once I saw him give a dig with his bamboo, but the object at which he aimed was not visible. It might have been an alligator, or a water-snake, or a big fish; but it seemed to concern him very little, for he again came towards us, ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston

... guarding for the Audubon Society the Cuthbert Egret Rookery. On Orange Lake, northward, the warden in charge still carries in his body a bullet from a plume gatherer's gun. Only three days before my visit Greene's nearest brother warden on duty at the Alligator Bay Colony had a desperate rifle battle with four poachers who, in defiance of law and decency, attempted to shoot the Egrets which he was ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... wickyup, an' hit the hay for a snooze. I'm some hurried to the concloosion by the way in which eevents begins to accumyoolate in my immedyit vicin'ty. Bill Wheeler announces without a word of warnin' that he's a flyin' alligator, besides advancin' the theery that Gene Hemphill is about as deeserv'dly pop'lar as a abolitionist in South Caroliny. I suspects that this attitoode of mind on Bill's part is likely to provoke discussion, which suspicion is ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... art lover, nor the Paris of the lover of history, nor yet again the Paris of the worth-while Parisians —but the Paris which the casual male visitor samples, is the most overrated thing on earth, I reckon—except alligator-pear salad —and the most costly. Its system of conduct is predicated, based, organized and manipulated on the principle that a foreigner with plenty of money and no soul will be along pretty soon. Hence by day ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Copan. This, he says, is on the side of an altar similar to that described by Stephens, except that the top wants the hieroglyphics. The sides have human figures similar to the other; on one of these is the head of an "Alligator." ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas

... carried the knight and the Lindwurm in triumph into the city of Bruenn, where they have ever since treasured up the memento of their former tyrant. The animal, or reptile, thus preserved, is undoubtedly of the crocodile or alligator species, although I regret it was not in my power to examine it more particularly, evening having set in when I saw it in the arched passage leading to the town-hall of the city where it has been suspended. I fear also ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various

... potatoes, alligator pear, fresh bread, REAL butter, coffee, AND cake," he proclaimed jovially. "Not to mention a cocktail, which I compounded with my own skilled hands. Are ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... splash as the fellow reached the water. Doubtless he was a good swimmer, as about all these natives seemed to be, and barring his falling a prey to some loitering alligator or other reptile, he would be able to gain the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... mississippiensis or lucius in the southern states of North America up to 12 ft. in length, and the small A. sinensis in the Yang-tse-kiang. In Central and South America alligators are represented by five species of the genus Caiman, which differs from Alligator by the absence of a bony septum between the nostrils, and the ventral armour is composed of overlapping bony scutes, each of which is formed of two parts united by a suture. C. sclerops, the spectacled alligator, has the widest distribution, from southern Mexico to the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... friends, M. Larsoneur, advocate, member of the bar at Lisieux, and archaeologist, would probably supply them with information about it. He had written a history of Port-en-Bessin, in which the discovery of an alligator ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... alligator tore up to Joam Garral, and after knocking him over with a sweep of his tail, ran at ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... cried another, whose landing-net was full of fish, as an enormous head like that of a white crocodile appeared above the water. The whole head was white; in the open mouth were two rows of sharp teeth like those of an alligator, but with four fangs meeting like a tiger's—a formidable head indeed. They may well call him the king of the lake, for there is no other creature in it, even of his own race, able to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... his importunities, he went home with his oppressed brother, intending to spend the night with him. His visit roused the fury of the wife, and "I saw in a minute," says our preacher, "that the devil was in her as big as an alligator, and I determined on my course." The woman held her tongue until after supper, when her husband asked her kindly to join them in prayers. She flew into a rage, and swore there should be no praying in ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... the Kentuckians," he added smiling, "are you know in some degree a separate race. They are scarcely looked upon as appertaining to the great American family. Half horse, half alligator, as they are pleased to term themselves, their roving mode of life and wild pursuits, are little removed from those of the native Indian, who scarcely inspires more curiosity among the civilized portion of the Union, than a ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... that journey he experienced fits of giddiness, and between whiles he speculated hazily as to the size of the blister the sun was raising on his back. For amusement he tried by looking ahead to decide whether the muddy object he saw lying on the water's edge was a log of wood or an alligator. Only very soon he had to give that up. No fun in it. Always alligator. One of them flopped into the river and all but capsized the canoe. But this excitement was over directly. Then in a long empty reach he was very grateful to a troop of monkeys who came right ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... bed, red, blue and white bottles that climbed the walls and crowded the mantelpiece, tops of bottles that peered out of half-opened boxes, all ticketed and mustered in regiments. From the ceiling a baby alligator swung on a wire, blinking at them horribly with shining glass eyes; a stuffed owl sat in one corner; while opposite, a muskrat peered into a crow's nest. The closet and all available floor space were heaped high ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... stag, is little more than a transient rage at a rival who comes in presence of the female he himself covets or has appropriated. This murderous wrath at a rival is a feeling which, as a matter of course a human savage may share with a wolf or an alligator; and in its ferocious indulgence primitive man places himself on a level with brutes—nay, below them, for in the struggle he often kills the female, which an animal never does. This wrath is not jealousy as we know it; it lacks a number of essential moral, intellectual, imaginative ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... though he began advances to make it my property. For the full demijohn he would have parted with the tiki that had been his grandfather's, but I had no fancy for it. One can buy in Paris purses of human skin for not much more than one of alligator hide. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... mother in the elevator; there was a more public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda at a small table against the wall. There she had clams—she adored iced clams—creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes bordure, alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back of the dinner check—Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven—placed ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... rattlesnake rattles round de neck, and alligator teeth am good, too. Show de new moon money and you'll have money all month. Throw her five kisses and show her money and make five wishes and you'll git dem. Eat black-eyed peas on New Year and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... quickness and dexterity. Birdlime is a device for which many plants furnish material,[166] and which is available even against large game, which is fretted and worn out by it until it becomes the prey of man. A Botocudo hunter grates the eggs of an alligator together, when he finds them on the bank, and so entices the mother.[167] The Yuroks of California sprinkled berries on the shallow bottom of a river and stretched a net a few inches below the surface of the water. Ducks diving for ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... For example, the Dyaks of Borneo will not kill a crocodile unless a crocodile has first killed a man. "For why, say they, should they commit an act of aggression, when he and his kindred can so easily repay them? But should the alligator take a human life, revenge becomes a sacred duty of the living relatives, who will trap the man-eater in the spirit of an officer of justice pursuing a criminal. Others, even then, hang back, reluctant to embroil ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... alligators lovely?" asked Mr. Pepper Sneed, who was known as "the actor with the grouch." He was always finding fault. "Lovely alligators!" he sneered. "If you want to go to Florida, and be eaten by an alligator—go. I'll not!" ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope

... white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glittering in the sunlight; numbers of ciganas (the pheasants of the Amazons) clustered in the bushes; once a pair of king vultures rested for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our canoe approached; and now and then an alligator showed his head above water. As we floated along through this picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful region to which we were all more or less strangers,—for even Dr. Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... occupies a position on a shelf near by, and all southern visitors greet the Alligator as a familiar friend, as all of us joyfully meet any acquaintance ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... look at the dazzling chandeliers, the magnificent pier-glasses, and the splendidly-dressed people, without being giddy at the sight. Soon after our arrival, the band commenced playing, and some of the company arranged themselves for a dance. Old Sir Cayman Alligator, an East-Indian Director, led out the graceful Lady Caroline Giraffe, who, I must say, deserved the praise young Nightingale bestowed upon her, when he said, she was one of "Nature's nobility." I could not but admire her large, full eyes, which looked at you ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... enamel, (richly variegated in color) in Persian silk, in seal-skin, in the skin of the rabbit, white-bear, crocodile, cat, dog, mole, tiger, otter, buffalo, wolf, and even rattle-snake. A favorite modern leather for purses and satchels, alligator-skin, has been also applied to the clothing of books. Many eccentric fancies have been exemplified in book-binding, but the acme of gruesome oddity has been reached by binding books in human skin, of which many examples are on record. It is perhaps three centuries ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... luxuriated in the endless variety of fruits brought off by the boats which were quickly alongside; oranges, plantains, bananas, alligator-pears, limes, pineapples, and numberless others, including the bread-fruit; and on going on shore, as some compensation for the horrible odours they had lately inhaled, they enjoyed the scent of the countless beautiful ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... vast city stretching as far as the eye could reach; with its flat-top, square-sided, boxlike buildings, with here and there a structure taller than the others; the flash of light from Trinity's spire, its cross aflame; the awkward, crab-like movements of innumerable ferry-boats, their gaping alligator mouths filled with human flies; the impudent, nervous little tugs, spitting steam in every passing face; the long strings of sausage-linked canalers kept together by grunting, slow-moving tows; the great floating track-yards ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... completely washed away by the flood above named. The General's quartermaster and myself secured a boat and with a crew of colored soldiers, we rowed some twelve miles to a place called Tigerville, on the Alligator bayou. Our route lay over the bed of the railroad, the track washed to one side of the cut, and a stream of water several feet deep on top of the bed. The road had been built through what seemed, most of the way, a primeval wilderness. ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman

... odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting aloft on the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indifferently drew attention to it, as one might to an object grown wearisome through familiarity, and observed that it was an 'alligator boat.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... candy, and they keep sendin' more all the time—and there's somep'n the trouble with grandpa: it makes him sick to smell violets: he had it ever since he was a little boy, and he can't help it; and he hates animals, and they keep sendin' her Airedales and Persian kittens, and then there was that alligator came from Florida and upset Kitty Silver terribly—and so, you see, grandpa just hates the whole ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... who affirmed that the human heart is like one of those southern pools which are quiet and beautiful on the surface, but in the bottom of which there lies an alligator! However calm the surface of the exile's soul appeared, there was a monster in its depth, and now it rose upon him. In his struggles with it he paced the floor, sank despairingly into his chair, and fell on his knees by turns. Animal desires and brute instincts grappled with intellectual ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... conquering hero, holding the martial stop sign with one hand. "The bottom of this bar is planted on the scow. Do you hear the noise it makes when I bump it up and down? It goes right through this land. We take possession of this scow in the name of the new Alligator Patrol or maybe it'll be the Turtles, we don't know yet. We plant ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth. One old man, who has been a close observer of Nature, and seems as thoroughly wise in regard to all her operations as if she had been put upon the stocks when he ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare. For Maggie Brown ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... Ah, then I suppose we'd better keep back the Rescue from the Alligator and the Plunge down Niagara ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... the future charm; These will delight, and feed, and work no harm While Punch, the grinning, merry imp of sin, Invites th' unwary wanderer to a kiss, Smiles in his face, as though he meant him bliss, Then, like an alligator, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... appearance of the hunters by the edge of the water—put a sudden termination to this grand drama of the wilderness. The birds flew up into the air, and went soaring off in different directions over the tops of the tall trees; while the huge reptiles, that had been taught by the alligator hunters to fear the presence of man, desisted for a while from their predatory prey, and retreated to the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... dismay. "I supposed his breakfast was intended to last the week. We shall need a fleet of boats to provision the fellow if he keep us company long. How is it, friend Benteen, are we to enjoy the pleasure of associating with this human alligator, or do we ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... Northerners stood in the red and blue and green doorways of the gay little shops, or sauntered past them; easily distinguished by their clothing and their air of unaccustomed and dissatisfied languor. One could pick out at a glance the new-comers just up from Florida; they were so decorated with alligator-tooth jewelry, and gazed so contemptuously at the oranges and bananas in the windows. The native Southerners were equally conspicuous, in the case of the men, from their careless dress and placid ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... even though he were engaged in business with the pirate, for no one knew what strange freak might at any time suggest itself to the soul of that most bloody roisterer; but as to following him, it was like walking into an alligator's jaws. He would take his passengers back to Kingston, but he could not sail upon any wild cruises, nor could he ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... the island, they leaped out of it together. Stam hurried up to a huge alligator and took deliberate aim before pulling the trigger; but, to his chagrin, the alligator still blinked at him after the hammer ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... adaptable to the wild life about her, no less did Philip. At night he smoked comfortably by his camp fire, unwound the hullabaloo upon request or lent it to Sho-caw. He rode hard and fearlessly with the warriors, hunted bear and alligator, acquired uncommon facility in the making of sof-ka, the tribal stew, and helped in the tanning of pelts and the building of ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... the alligator pear, the papaya, and the mango at Honolulu, but we were still expecting strange and wonderful gastronomic treats in our first ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a warm ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... expiring spasm. One of the alligators was killed almost immediately by falling across a great fragment of shattered glass, which cut open his stomach and let out the greater part of his entrails to the light of day. The remaining alligator became involved in a controversy with an anaconda, and joined the melee in the centre ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... asked ignorant questions of the man at the wheel. The steward of the Panama was purser, supercargo, and bar-keeper in one, and a most interesting man. He apparently never slept, but at any hour was willing to sit and chat with me. It was he who first introduced me to the wonderful mysteries of the alligator pear as a salad, and taught me to prefer, in a hot country, Jamaica rum with half a lime squeezed into the glass to all other spirits. It was ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... questions. He was especially interested in the trial of Herbert, a California Congressman, who had shot dead at a hotel table a waiter who had not promptly served him, and he appeared to study old Major Lane, a "hunter from Kentucky," "half horse and half alligator," but gentlemanly in his manners, and partial to rye-whisky, ruffled shirts, gold-headed canes, and draw-poker. The Major had fought—so he said—under Jackson at New Orleans, under Houston at San Jacinto, and under ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... inclined, came sliding out of the darkness toward him, a malignant and menacing apparition, with a glow of animosity in two deep-set eyes and with a pair of prehensile lips curled back to display more teeth than by rights an alligator should have. It was immediately evident to Red Hoss that in the Frank mule's mind a deep-seated aversion for him had been engendered. He had the feeling that potential ill health lurked in that neighborhood; that ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... Within ten years the alligator has become an important factor to the artistic manufacturer. The hide, by a new process, is tanned to an agreeable softness and used in innumerable ways. The most costly bags and trunks are made from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... a bright American boy, the author shows how the necessary information is gathered. The securing of this often involves hardship and peril, requiring journeys by dog-team in the frozen North and by launch in the alligator-filled Everglades of Florida, while the enumerator whose work lies among the dangerous criminal classes of the greater cities must take his life in ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... brush and roll the log; Hard pillow, but a soldier's head That's half the time in brake and bog Must never think of softer bed. The owl is hooting to the night, The cooter crawling o'er the bank, And in that pond the flashing light Tells where the alligator sank. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... are also alligator-pears, limes, and oranges. There is something about those oranges I should like to have explained. They are usually green and sweetish in taste, nor have they much white pith, but now and again you get a big bright yellow one from those trees that have been imported, and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... supply of fish, some of which were cooked on the spot, brother Ed., in wandering about, captured a young alligator, and led it along to where sister Lu was seated, saying: "I've brought you a new pet, Lu." She adopted the little monster at once, and it was carried home, and turned loose in the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... Tiare began at 6:30, but lingered for several hours. It was of fruit and coffee and bread; papayas, bananas, oranges, pineapples, and alligator-pears, which latter the French call avocats, the Mexicans ahuacatl, and were brought here from the West Indies. To this breakfast male guests dropped in from the bath in pajamas, but the dejeuner a la fourchette, or second breakfast at eleven, was more formal, and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... fishes which were isles of living scale, And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 305 The iron crags, or within heaps of dust To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs Had crushed the iron crags; and over these The jagged alligator, and the might Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 310 Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, And weed-overgrown continents of earth, Increased and multiplied like summer worms On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe Wrapped deluge round it like a cloak, and they 315 Yelled, gasped, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... denounce my opponent as a liar. His accusation is utterly false. I deny the allegation, and I scorn the alligator—" ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... Casuarina remained at Kupang till June 3—twenty-eight days—enjoying the hospitality of the Dutch. Peron made several excursions for collecting purposes, and once shot an alligator nine feet long, which he skinned. He had the hide and head carried down to the port by Malays on long bamboo poles, this method of conveyance being necessitated by the superstitious refusal of the natives to touch even the skin ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... into a strange and lonely world. The tall cypress-trees on each bank, draped with funeral moss, cast impenetrable shadows on the water; the deathlike silence was broken only by the occasional ominous hoot of an owl or the wheezy snort of an alligator; the clammy air breathed poison. But the stars overhead were bright, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... them off with his club, and paddled for the shore. When he got near the shore, the alligators left him. He went a little farther up the river, and got some fish. When he came back, he kept close to the shore. One alligator twelve feet long followed him. When Bartram went ashore near his camp, the creature crept close to his feet, and lay there looking at him for ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... street, where there were no car-windows to compromise his dignity. At the end of his run he stepped indifferently from the train along with the passengers, his street hat on his head and his conductor's cap in an alligator-skin bag, went directly into the station and changed his clothes. It was a matter of the utmost importance to him never to be seen in his blue trousers away from his train. He was usually cold and distant with men, but with all women he ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... about almost disconsolately for some sign of life. What sort of life he expected it to be if it appeared, he did not very clearly know. He has since confessed that he thinks that in his subconsciousness he expected an alligator. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... the outside of a pane of glass, with a candle on the inside. There is, I believe, no class of living creatures in which the gradations can be traced with such minuteness and regularity as in this; where, from the small animal just described, to the huge alligator or crocodile, a chain may be traced containing almost innumerable links, of which the remotest have a striking resemblance to each other, and seem, at first view, to differ ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... petrified with horror, for the creature was streaming with faintly luminous phosphorescence, and thus, despite the darkness, it was possible to see that it was certainly not a whale, or any other known denizen of the deep, for it had a head shaped somewhat like that of an alligator—but considerably larger than that of any alligator I had ever seen—attached to a very long and somewhat slender neck, which it carried stretched straight out before it at an angle of some thirty degrees with the surface of the water, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... boatmen who professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands of this lawless, dissolute element. Each boat carried from ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... house, and that he would take them to her at once. Placing the two boys on his shoulders he walked along till he came to a river. He set down Nir and carried Sarwar safely across, but as he was going back for the other, behold, an alligator seized him. It was the will of God: what remedy is there against the writing of Fate? The two boys, separated by the river, sat down and wept in their sorrow. In the early morning a washerman was up and spreading his clothes. He heard the two ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... low voice. 'Been alligator farming, or ostrich farming, or ranching, and come back shorn; they all come back. He wants to be an ecclesiastical "chucker out," and cope with Mr. Kensitt ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... about to pursue these questions, when a stumping noise was heard outside, coming towards the door. 'Hush! here's Wegg!' said Venus. 'Get behind the young alligator in the corner, Mr Boffin, and judge him for yourself. I won't light a candle till he's gone; there'll only be the glow of the fire; Wegg's well acquainted with the alligator, and he won't take particular notice of him. Draw your legs in, Mr Boffin, at present I see a pair of shoes at the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... revolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our island—though this I say with reluctance—are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change—that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast—he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood amongst naturalists, that the crocodile is a blockhead. ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... so,' it is like reading an epitaph on a tombstone. So, at last, solitary and hopeless, I came back to my own land; and I found you,—a blessing greater than I had ever dared to count on. And how was I to maintain you, and take you from that long-nosed alligator called Crane, and put you in womanly gentle hands; for I never thought then of subjecting you to all you have since undergone with me,—I who did not know one useful thing in life by which a man can turn a penny. And then, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that the art of standing began with birds. Frogs sit, and, as far as I know, every reptile, be it lizard, crocodile, alligator, or tortoise, lays its body on the ground when not actually carrying it. And these have each four fat legs. Contrast the flamingo, which, having only two, and those like willow wands, tucks up one of them and sleeps poised ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... parents the food which the chances of the hunt may delay, they do not cease chirping and calling by their cries. But the parents are not alone in hearing these appeals. They may also strike the ears of the alligator, who furtively approaches the imprudent singers. With a sudden stroke of his tail he strikes the reeds and throws into the water one or more of the hungry young ones, who are then at his ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... according to the botanic variety. The intermediate shape is like a lemon, with furrows from end to end. There are pods, called Calabacillo, smooth and ovate like a calabash, and there are others, more rare, so "nobbly" that they are well-named "Alligator." The pods vary in length from five to eleven inches, "with here and there the great pod of all, the blood-red sangre-tora." The colours of the pods are as brilliant as they are various. They are rich and strong, and resemble those of the rind of the pomegranate. ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... and kernels of the gum tree, terminalia, mangoes, alligator pears, the guava, the bread tree, and the narrow-leaved eugenia, were planted with profusion; and the greater number of those trees already afforded to their young cultivator both shade and fruit. His industrious ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... city, she was prevailed upon to go for a walk in the park. She went alone, putting on for the first time the little hat of black straw with its puff of white silk her mother had bought for her, a pink shirtwaist, her belt of imitation alligator skin, her new skirt of brown cloth, and her low shoes, set off with their ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... jauntiest of creatures, she's the daintiest of misses, With her pretty patent leathers or her alligator ties, With her eyes inviting glances and her lips inviting kisses, As she wanders by the ocean or strolls ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... moored at the camp, in two fathoms, close to the bank. Having obtained a supply of water, I despatched Mr. Baines, with Phibbs, Shewell, and Dawson, in the gig to bring up the sheep, the long-boat also going down the river with a crew from the vessel to bring up the kedge anchor and warp from Alligator Island, and also to assist in bringing up the sheep. In the evening there was a fine breeze from the east, and the thermometer fell to 65 degrees during the night. A few days before our arrival one ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... suppose we'd better keep back the Rescue from the Alligator and the Plunge down Niagara ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... de preacher wuz in de river fixin' ter baptize a man. Eve'ybody wuz singin' ole time 'ligion. A 'oman sung, "I don' lak dat thing 'hind you." Bout dat time de pahson en de udder man se'd an alligator. De parson sezs, "No-By-God I Don't Either." He turned de man loose en ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... differ in colour; nor do I know that the males fight together, though this is probable, for some kinds make a prodigious display before the females. Bartram (54. 'Travels through Carolina,' etc., 1791, p. 128.) describes the male alligator as striving to win the female by splashing and roaring in the midst of a lagoon, "swollen to an extent ready to burst, with its head and tail lifted up, he springs or twirls round on the surface of the water, like an Indian chief ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... modern European boudoir than those of this apartment, which had, in some degree, been made the sanctum of its present occupants. Here was to be seen the scaly carcass of some huge serpent, extending its now harmless length from the ceiling to the floor—there an alligator, stuffed after the same fashion; and in various directions the skins of the beaver, the marten, the otter, and an infinitude of others of that genus, filled up spaces that were left unsupplied by the more ingenious specimens of Indian art. Head-dresses tastefully wrought ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... so de san' lay low, San' a little heavy f'om de rain, All de pa'ms a-wavin' an' a-weavin' slow, Sighin' lak a sinnah-soul in pain. Alligator grinnin' by de ol' lagoon, Mockin'-bird a-singin' to be big full moon. 'Skeeter go a-skimmin' to his fightin' chune (Lizy Ann's ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... four-legged, the deer, the bison, the horse, the cow, the panther, the musk-ox, the antelope, the goat, and the dog, with many more, such as the beaver, the otter, the mink, and the musk-rat, which lay with their tails in the pond and their heads in the pen; and others, such as the tortoise and the alligator, whose snouts preferred water, while their tails stuck to the land. In the coop were a vast many birds and fowls, some of beautiful and varied plumage, while others were robed in dirty and dingy feathers; some were very tender, and good to eat, and some were tough, and but so-so. I need not particularise ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... world's goods to the extent of more than one pair of pants, will send one pair at least to John Turner, Mauston, Wis., by express. We are probably as poor as any editor, but we have sent him those alligator pants that have created such a sensation in years gone by. It is true they are a little bit fringy about the bottoms, and the knees are worn through, and concealment, like a worm in the bud, has gnawed the foundation all out of them, but in a little ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... the vast city stretching as far as the eye could reach; with its flat-top, square-sided, boxlike buildings, with here and there a structure taller than the others; the flash of light from Trinity's spire, its cross aflame; the awkward, crab-like movements of innumerable ferry-boats, their gaping alligator mouths filled with human flies; the impudent, nervous little tugs, spitting steam in every passing face; the long strings of sausage-linked canalers kept together by grunting, slow-moving tows; the great floating track-yards ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... day the boats were despatched up the river, but as the ebb-tide ran until after four o'clock it was late at night before they reached the cascade, having experienced some delay by running upon the sandbanks, which, above Alligator Island, are very numerous and form a narrow winding channel of not more than twelve feet deep; these banks are dry at low-water, and are composed of a yellow quartzose sand. At midnight, as soon as the launch and cutter were loaded, for it did not take more than half an hour to fill ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... Oh, it is an alligator!" and as she spoke she was nearly unseated. "It has Cato by ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... The nearest alligator made a snap at the seed as it sank in the river, but he missed it, and the next minute he found himself no bigger than a lizard, sitting at the bottom of a stream not half a yard across. At the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... for fruit only, on the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, but not paying these expensive prices, no, not never. And I shall live there for better but not for worse, for richer, but most positively not for poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own tree unless I want to sell them for fifteen cents on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile east ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... Australia, the Swan, the Irwin, the Greenough, the Murchison, and the Gascoyne, the Ashburton, the Fortescue, the De Grey, and another Fitzroy. On the north coast, we meet with the Victoria, the Daly, the Adelaide, the Alligator, the Liverpool, the Roper, the Limmen Bight, the Macarthur, the Robinson and the Calvert, the Albert—which is the outlet for the Nicholson and the Gregory—the Leichhardt and the Flinders, the Norman, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... Dick, mildly; "for 't is not the topic of conversation I should choose myself, just at present. And as for that black-whiskered alligator, the baron, let me first get out of those rambustious, unchristian, filbert-shaped claws of his, and then—but jump in! jump in! and tell the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... who, he says, is all Hastings, with a very little Tracy and not a grain of German in him, 'but very nice, very nice; and you are his grandmother, too, and I am his grandfather, whom he once called an old crazy man because I wouldn't let him play in my room with a little alligator which his Aunt ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... S. Riddick, Esq., soon saw Capt. Busby, and his gondola was chartered to carry the party to the Lake. Mr. Riddick made every preparation necessary for them, but one of the parties heard that an alligator was on exhibition near the hotel, and thinking that it was brought from the Lake, at once provided himself with a rifle and a large quantity of fixed ammunition. All were then ready and they left for the canal, ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold

... feast I secretly and faithfully promised my chef a material increase in wages. I had never suspected him of being such a genius, nor myself of being such a Pantegruelian disciple. I must mention the alligator pear salad. For three weeks I had been trying to buy alligator pears in the town hard by. These came from Paris. The chef had spoken to me about them that morning, asking me when I had ordered them. Inasmuch as I had not ordered ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... we found the railroad completely washed away by the flood above named. The General's quartermaster and myself secured a boat and with a crew of colored soldiers, we rowed some twelve miles to a place called Tigerville, on the Alligator bayou. Our route lay over the bed of the railroad, the track washed to one side of the cut, and a stream of water several feet deep on top of the bed. The road had been built through what seemed, most of the way, a primeval wilderness. The rank growth which skirted both ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman

... sliding out of the darkness toward him, a malignant and menacing apparition, with a glow of animosity in two deep-set eyes and with a pair of prehensile lips curled back to display more teeth than by rights an alligator should have. It was immediately evident to Red Hoss that in the Frank mule's mind a deep-seated aversion for him had been engendered. He had the feeling that potential ill health lurked in that neighborhood; that ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... Adults, Birthday parties for, Advertised goods, Nationally, After-dinner coffee, Afternoon tea, teas, Age on children's diet, Effect of, on diet, Effect of, Alcoholic beverages, beverages, Harmful effects of, beverages, Kinds of, Alligator pear, or avocado, Apple butter, sauce, Apples, apricots, and peaches, Dried, Composition and food value of, Drying of, Maple, Porcupine, Steamed, Stewed quinces and, Apportionment of income, Apricot souffle, Apricots, Drying of, Food value and composition of, peaches, and apples, Dried, Artificial ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... "An 'Alligator' press," he said, "like the one in the Standard office. It ought to be oiled, though. It needs adjusting, too. No wonder it would not work. I can make ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... but a soldier's head That's half the time in brake and bog Must never think of softer bed. The owl is hooting to the night, The cooter crawling o'er the bank, And in that pond the flashing light Tells where the alligator sank. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... were encrusted as hard as an alligator's back; and there he stood, a picture upon which the sympathies of Christendom were enlisted-a human object without the rights of man, in a free republic. He held a red cap in his left hand, a pair of coarse osnaburg trousers ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... to powder the shillings or use them whole—I would have thought an alligator's or shark's tooth would scarcely ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... when the lizard was on the outside of a pane of glass, with a candle on the inside. There is, I believe, no class of living creatures in which the gradations can be traced with such minuteness and regularity as in this; where, from the small animal just described, to the huge alligator or crocodile, a chain may be traced containing almost innumerable links, of which the remotest have a striking resemblance to each other, and seem, at first view, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... of the stream was a clump of small trees and reeds which I walked up to examine with a desire to recognise any trees belonging to known species, but to my horror, on looking into the reeds, I saw what appeared to be a huge alligator fast asleep. The men now peeped at it and all agreed that it was an alligator. I therefore retreated to a respectful and suitable distance and let fly at it with a rifle; it gave, as we thought, a kind of shake, and then took no further notice of us. I therefore took a ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... not want to take the big man on the trip for various reasons. "No, maybe not, Koku. Your skin is pretty tough. But I understand there are deep pools of water in the land where we are going, and in them lives a fish that has a hide like an alligator and a jaw like a shark. If you fall in ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... is very ferocious, and is popularly styled the hyena of the alligator tribe. This savage creature will instantly attack a man or a horse, and on this account the Indians of Chili, before wading a stream, take the precaution of using long poles, to ascertain its presence or to drive it away. Naturalists assert that the cayman is not found in the North ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... range of the alligator but here the great Saurian is seldom seen. He prefers the more sluggish bayous, or the streams whose shores are still wild. In the rapid current of the Mississippi, and along its well-cultivated banks, he is but rarely observed by ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... for fear of breaking up the traffic in slaves; and the agent returned discouraged. Winn soon died, and Bacon returned to the United States. In November, Dr. Eli Ayres was sent over as agent, and the U.S. schooner Alligator, commanded by Lieutenant Stockton, was ordered to the coast to assist in obtaining a foothold for the colony. Cape Montserado was again visited; and the address and firmness of Lieutenant Stockton accomplished the purchase of a valuable ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson

... for a few minutes; then he suspended operations and looked Files hard in the face; that face, as to mouth, was as widely open as the countenance of the office alligator. "I did a whole lot of thinking last night, Files. I'm telling you first, like I propose to tell others in Egypt as I come in contact with 'em during the day—it has been my fault—how things have happened! The night brings ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... in Terra Firma, or in the Missions of the Orinoco, at a distance from the sea, a considerable quantity of salt, sometimes as much as half a bushel, is thrown into the hole which receives the nut. Among the plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain, the mammee-apple, and alligator-pear (Laurus persea), alone have the property of the cocoa-tree; that of being watered equally well with fresh and salt water. This circumstance is favourable to their migrations; and if the sugarcane of the sea-shore yield a syrup that is a little brackish, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... elegant, and it has a large thick tuft or crest of feathers covering the whole head, which gives it a sort of military look; and, indeed, it seems to be a commander, for it leads all of its relatives. It sometimes stays so long under the water that I begin to fear something has happened,—that an alligator, or some other huge beast, has got hold of it; but it always makes its appearance after a while, often at quite a long distance from where it ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... surrounding forests. The rude warriors were filled with sentiments of awe. Not a bark dimpled the waters. No living thing was to be seen but the wild tenants of the wilderness, the unwieldy boa, and the loathsome alligator basking on the borders of the stream. The trees towering in wide-spread magnificence towards the heavens, the river rolling on in its rocky bed as it had rolled for ages, the solitude and silence of the scene, broken only by the hoarse fall of waters, or the faint rustling of the woods,—all seemed ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... spring when the first midges dance and warm days lure the last-year's butterfly, the scarlet of the cardinals begins to flicker through the ivory smoke of the mosses. Then the alligator leaves his winter ooze, and the widening "O" of the ripple which his gar-like nose makes, travels slowly across the sullen ponds, where the pendant gonfalons of the mosses kiss their imaginary duplicates, hanging head downward ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... achievement of Colonel Taylor in Florida was his victory of OKEE-CHOBEE, which was gained on the 25th of December, 1837. The action was very severe, and continued nearly four hours. The Indians, under the command of Alligator and Sam Jones, numbered about 700 warriors, and were posted in a dense hammock, with their front covered by a small stream, almost impassable on account of quicksands, and with their flanks secured ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... this person's appearance to call forth such a welcome. He was dressed in a half-Indian, half-hunter's garb, a long-barrelled rifle was slanted over his shoulder, and he seemed a favorable specimen of the "half-horse, half-alligator" type of the early West. But there was a shrewd look on his weather-beaten face and a humorous twinkle in his eyes that betokened a man above the ordinary frontier level, while it was very evident that the guests present looked upon him as ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... to China and North America the alligator of the Yangtsze-kiang is generically identical with its Mississippi relative. The spoon-beaked sturgeon of the Yangtsze and Hwang-ho is, however, now separated, as Psephurus, from the closely allied American Polyodon. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... countries, which require a colder winter than that experienced in any part of this State. It will, however, be seen at once that a country that can produce such fruits as the mango, pineapple, banana, papaw, granadilla, guava, custard apple, litchi, sour sop, cocoa nut, bread fruit, jack fruit, monstera, alligator pear, and others of a purely tropical character; the date, citrus fruits of all kinds, passion fruit, persimmon, olive, pecan nut, cape gooseberry, loquat, and other fruits of a semi-tropical character, ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson

... indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land. After a few months these things become old stories. They take their places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some pains to understand his visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats, chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the blooming of century plants, the fruits of chollas and the like. Baker pointed out some of these things ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... and put on her hat to go out for something forgotten until now. As she stepped into the hall, a tall young man, with extremely long arms and legs, and mouth, that, although shaded by a faint outline of a mustache, invariably suggested an alligator, opened the door of Mrs. Simonson's rooms, opposite, and seeing Nattie, started back in a sort of nervous bashfulness. Recovering himself, he then darted out with such impetuosity that his foot caught in a rug, he ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... man, over in the corner by the scullery door. He had a nose like Sultan Abdul Hamid's and large, elongated eyes that looked capable of seeing things on either side of him while he stared straight forward. Even in that dark corner you could see they had the alligator-hue that one associates with cruelty. He had the massive shoulders and forward-stooping position as he sat cross-legged on the seat that suggest ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... "All right, sir; if I find some meat cooked for me, I will guarantee that I will eat it, even if it is as tough as an alligator." ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... Hassib, "so your learned white men say; 'alligator lizard' I heard one call it. But it is really a thing that comes out ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... air of official aloofness even on the street, where there were no car-windows to compromise his dignity. At the end of his run he stepped indifferently from the train along with the passengers, his street hat on his head and his conductor's cap in an alligator-skin bag, went directly into the station and changed his clothes. It was a matter of the utmost importance to him never to be seen in his blue trousers away from his train. He was usually cold and distant with men, but with ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... of wood. It is famed, as most woody places are, for snakes and poisonous reptiles: the country people will scarcely move abroad after nightfall for fear of them, and always carry a charm about their person to prevent injury from their bite. This charm is an alligator's tooth, stuffed with herbs, compounded and muttered over ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... Apicius[A] lament that America and turtle were not discovered in his days. There were the guanas, too, in abundance, with their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these are excellent food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the alligator, and its diminutive European representative, the harmless lizard. Muscovy ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine apples abounded, oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains, love apples, Abbogada pears (better known by ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the climate of the globe during the middle period, and well into the third period, appears to have been of a tropical character. The climatic and seasonal divisions were not at all pronounced, and both animal and vegetable life took on gigantic and grotesque forms. In the ugliness of alligator and rhinoceros and hippopotamus of our day we get some hint of what early reptilian ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... island, they leaped out of it together. Stam hurried up to a huge alligator and took deliberate aim before pulling the trigger; but, to his chagrin, the alligator still blinked at him after the hammer struck ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... accusation. It's condolence. I am sorry for both of us, George, that we can't sit there under the trees and eat out of a basket and have spiders and ants in things and not mind it. Here we are in the land of Smithfield hams and spoon-bread and we ate canned lobster for lunch, and alligator pear salad." ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... substance to go into any stomach, unless it be that of a buzzard. Heredity and environment have made this bird a carrion-eater, hence, like the jackal, the hyena, and the alligator, companion scavengers, it can eat putrid flesh with impunity. Other flesh-eating animals avoid carrion when they can, for long years of experience have taught them that decaying meat contains certain ptomaines which render it very poisonous; ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... took a boat, and rowed some distance up a creek. There we saw an alligator with a young one by its side. The young are very small, compared with the full-grown reptile. You can see from the picture, that the alligator is not handsome; but that is no reason why bullets should be lodged in its hide. I came to the conclusion that firing pistols at these animals was ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... around after us tellin' me not to be frightened, an' givin' Cupid a tongue-handlin' that would 'a' stung a deaf alligator. When I can't hold in any longer I rolls over on a dievan—that's what they call a hotel sofy—an' get Cupid in my arms an' make a sound as if he was stranglin' me. Bill gets Cupid by the collar an' jerks him off, ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... black snout, as Bunny remembered once to have seen it on an alligator in a zoological park tank, rose into view. And there was a swirl of the water as though the reptile had ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... which find their home in the ground, the long grass, the foliage, and the bark of the trees, the chorus being swelled in the present instance by the cries of countless lizards—from the diminutive and harmless grass-lizard up to the alligator, the weird sounds uttered by the nocturnal birds which flitted on noiseless wing from bough to bough, and the rattling chirr of a whole army of frogs. And very soon, too, we discovered that we were in one of ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... is a true story. All that imagination had to do with it was to find names for the boys and arrange a sequence of events. Other characters, white and Indian, appear under names similar to, or identical with their own. Any old alligator hunter, familiar with the swamps and the Ten Thousand Islands, can follow the course of the explorers from the text of the story. It would be possible for two fearless boys, imbued with a love of Nature and the wilderness, ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... and the Casuarina remained at Kupang till June 3—twenty-eight days—enjoying the hospitality of the Dutch. Peron made several excursions for collecting purposes, and once shot an alligator nine feet long, which he skinned. He had the hide and head carried down to the port by Malays on long bamboo poles, this method of conveyance being necessitated by the superstitious refusal of the natives to touch even the skin of the dreaded beast. But the labour was ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... sort of clam shell point. In driving, the two jaws are held closed by the pressure of the earth and in pulling they open apart of their own weight to permit the concrete to pass them. This point, known as the alligator point, is pulled with the shell. It is suitable only for driving in firm, compact soil, in loose soil the pressure inward of the walls keeps the jaws partly closed and so contracts the diameter of the finished pile. The second style of point is a hollow cast iron point, 10 ins. deep and ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... her own people. Her house became a Mecca for native men and women, usually performing pilgrimage privily after darkness fell, with presents always in their hands— squid fresh from the reef, opihis and limu, baskets of alligator pears, roasting corn of the earliest from windward Cahu, mangoes and star-apples, taro pink and royal of the finest selection, sucking pigs, banana poi, breadfruit, and crabs caught the very day from Pearl Harbour. Mary Mendana, wife of the ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... The huge alligator tore up to Joam Garral, and after knocking him over with a sweep of his tail, ran at ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... at the dazzling chandeliers, the magnificent pier-glasses, and the splendidly-dressed people, without being giddy at the sight. Soon after our arrival, the band commenced playing, and some of the company arranged themselves for a dance. Old Sir Cayman Alligator, an East-Indian Director, led out the graceful Lady Caroline Giraffe, who, I must say, deserved the praise young Nightingale bestowed upon her, when he said, she was one of "Nature's nobility." I could not but admire her large, full eyes, which looked ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... hard, impenetrable body, and not the soft substance of which all the marine inhabitants that he had heard of were made, such as whales, sharks, walruses, and the like. If anything, it more resembled a tortoise or an alligator. A hollow sound was emitted when it was struck, and it appeared to be made ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... charm; These will delight, and feed, and work no harm While Punch, the grinning, merry imp of sin, Invites th' unwary wanderer to a kiss, Smiles in his face, as though he meant him bliss, Then, like an alligator, drags ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... the President replied; "persons from up here go all the way to Florida just to see a live alligator"—and so he put the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... about the mouth of the river, and, for aught I know, in every part of the country. You perceive that I am constantly discovering new luxuries for my table. Not having been able to kill a crocodile (alligator), I have offered a reward for one, which I mean to eat, dressed in soup, fricassees, and steaks. Oh! how you long to partake of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... measures toward starting, and did not even inquire where Miss Harleth was gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that was mingled with much distrust; for Grandcourt had said no word to him about her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling what might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. Still, to have put off a decision was to have made room for the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... at the elbow-joint, as a consequence of an alligator-bite nine days before admission to the hospital. The patient exhibited a compound comminuted fracture of the right radius and ulna in their lower thirds, compound comminuted fractures of the bones of the carpus and metacarpus, with great ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... and the grave consideration which instantly won Indians, La Salle moved from tribe to tribe towards the Gulf. Red River pulsed upon the course like a discharging artery. The sluggish alligator woke from the ooze and poked up his snout at the canoes. "He is," says a quaint old writer who made that journey afterwards, "the most frightful master-fish that can be seen. I saw one that was as large as half a hogshead. There are some, they say, as large as a hogshead and twelve to fifteen ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... built up a pair of very tall legs, in the shape of his own, and made them walk about a while. He was pleased with the motion. Then followed a round body covered with large scales, like those of the alligator. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous

... was painted on his face. In silence he looked toward the neighboring mountain and continued moving the handle of the net from one side to the other. Finally, without taking the net out of the water, he murmured in a low voice: "An alligator." ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... varieties, some of which are exported while others are practically unknown here. The Cuban mango is not of the best, but they are locally consumed by the million. Only a few of the best are produced and those command a fancy price even when they are obtainable. The aguacate, or alligator pear, is produced in abundance. Cocoanuts are a product largely of the eastern end of the island, although produced in fair supply elsewhere. The trees are victims of a disastrous bud disease that has attacked them in recent years causing ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... waking up to the fact that there was embarrassment in meeting this trifling charge. "I have money;" and she opened her dainty purse for the purpose—a silvery alligator thing with golden clasps and her monogram on it in jewels, and took out the money needed. Her sisters and brother had a glimpse of bills and ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... an alligator, fellows. Some of the natives told me there are a few in this old stream," ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... better build our fire big," said Long Jim. "I don't want to wake up in the mornin' an' find myself devoured by an alligator, jest when I wuz about to reach the ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... him that I do mean. He ran young Alec Simpson of the Courier a mile down the high road last week by the collar of his coat and the slack of his breeches. You'll have read of it, likely, in the police report. Our boys would as soon interview a loose alligator in the zoo. But you could do it, I'm thinking—an old friend ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and capabilities, native squabbles over title, Cameron's scheme for its working and local establishment, occupation suggested for the leisure of the mining staff, working hours and food. Akim, ii. Akra, earthquake at, ii. Akromasi, ii. Akus (tribe), the, ii. Albreda, i. Alligator-pear (Pertea gratislima), the, i. Alta Vista (Mt. Atlas), i. Ananse (silk spider), the, ii. Ancobra (river), the, origin of name, ii. Anima-kru, ii. Apankru, a 'great central depot,' ii. Apateplu (watch-bird), the, ii. Apatim concession, the, capabilities ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... deck, he was drawing the long-bow, as the Yankees call it, at a prodigious rate. He was telling how, once upon a time, he had caught a young alligator; how he had tamed it and fed it till it grew a monster twenty feet long; how he used to saddle it and bridle it, and ride through the streets of Tulcora on its back—men, women, and children screaming and flying in all directions; how, armed only with ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... family, and none more so than my aunt, then a girl of fifteen or sixteen, were very anxious to know what he had seen and what the remains of the most-talked-of man in the Europe of his day looked like. "What did he look like, my dear? He looked like an alligator," said the Admiral, who did not mince his words. It is strange that men should prefer to put their kin in what, in the naval records after Trafalgar, is called "a pickle" rather than give them a burial at sea or in "some corner of ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... trees could we see, for the shore on either hand was completely hidden by the dense growth that hung over and touched the water. On a mud bar that we passed a huge alligator lay, taking a sun bath, and though many shots were fired at him he moved away very leisurely. No one could get on shore without first clearing a road through the thick brushes and vines along the bank. On the way one of our boatmen lost his hat, his only garment, into the river, and ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... dear Miles—Here I have been, moored head and starn, these ten days, as comfortable as heart could wish, in the bosom of my family. The old woman was right down glad to see me, and she cried like an alligator, when she heard my story. As for Kitty, she cried, and she laughed in the bargain; but that young Bright, whom you may remember we fell in with, in our cruise after old Van Tassel, has fairly hauled alongside of my niece, and she does little but ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... portion of the general life, however, is in the nervous system of the body, and in proportion as the brain declines in development the relative amount of psychic energy in the body is greater. Thus the body of the alligator after decapitation is capable of sensation and voluntary acts, such as pushing away an offending body with its foot. The character of the life in the body is explained by physiology and sarcognomy. Its universal presence is due to the universal diffusion of the nervous system, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various

... wilderness come back to its former state. But he found time to gratify me, and he would screw up his dry Welsh face and beckon to me sometimes to bring a stick and hunt out squirrel, coon, or some ugly little alligator, which he knew to be hiding under the roots of a tree in some pool. Then, as much to please me as for use, a punt was bought from the owners of a brig which had sailed across from Bristol to make her last voyage, being condemned to breaking up at ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... too high to be conveniently dusted, a few stuffed birds, and one small alligator. 'Some of these days,' said Abner to himself, 'I am goin' to get on a step-ladder and look at them birds and things; I never did properly know what ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... loss not irreparable), and so were the purple gallinules; for them, the boy thought, it was still rather early in the season, although he had killed one a few days before, and for proof had brought me a wing. But as we were skirting along the shore I suddenly called "Hist!" An alligator lay on the bank just before us. The boy turned his head, and instantly was all excitement. It was a big fellow, he said,—one of three big ones that inhabited the creek. He would get him this time. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Oh yes, I'll blow the top of his head off." ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... not wise to wade waist or knee deep in a Sunderbunds creek, and clear a boat with a yo-heave-ho, for fear of some festive mugger, which means alligator, lurking in the mud. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... to be the hawk, he had picked out his minnow, and he was meditating the capture of his prey. A great many people do as much as that, and discover too late that what they have taken for a minnow is an alligator, or a tartar, or a salamander, or some evil beast that is too much for their powers. This was what Mr. Barker was afraid of, and this was what he wished to guard against. Unfortunately he was a little late in the selection of his victim, and he knew it. He had ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... with which she must deal. In the dining room she had felt recklessly intrepid and the utter mystification of Buck Crowley had amused her. But she had had plenty of opportunity in her Vose-Mern work to know the nature of Crowley—he had the shell of an alligator and the scruples of a viper and would double-cross a twin brother if the project could help ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... hearing it go, he calmly went to sleep again. Had he known who his caller really was, he would not have felt so comfortable. In the morning on the damp ground below, he found the tracks of a fourteen foot alligator, which was also out prospecting, but which, fortunately, had not thought of investigating ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... bush—it's a real Yankee patent invention." With that all the gentlemen set up a laugh, you might have heerd away down to Sandy Hook, and the Gineral gig-gobbled like a great turkey-cock—the half nigger, half alligator-like looking villain as he is. I tell you what, Mr. Slick,' said the Professor, 'I wish with all my heart them 'ere damned nutmegs were in the bottom of the sea.' That was the first oath I ever heerd him let slip: but ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... of white elephants pasturing across heavenly fields, too slowly for the eye to note their motion; and below, the far-reaching, tremulous sheen of reed and bulrush, the wet lair of serpent, wild-cat, and alligator. Now and then there was the cool blue of sunny, wind-swept waters winding hither and thither toward the sea, and sometimes miles of deep forest swamp through which the railroad went by broad, frowzy, treeless clearings flanked with impassable ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... the nettled count, starting and gaping as though he would have swallowed a young alligator — "de Briteesh fight like de diable! Jaun foutre de Briteesh! when they been known for fight like de diable? Ess, ess, dat true enough; dey fight de Americans like de diable — but by gar dey no fight de French-a-mans ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... was an apt Alligator, Who wanted to be a head-waiter; He said, "I opine In that field I could shine, Because I am ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... for the demoiselle," announced Mephisto to the woman who met them. She was small and wizened and old, with yellow, flabby jaws, a neck like the throat of an alligator, and straight, white hair that stood from ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... be half man an' half alligator," he shouted. "Oh, I'm one o' yer tough kind, live forever an' then turn into a hickory post. I've just crept out o' the ma'shes of ol' Kentuck. I'm only a yearlin', but cuss me if I don't think I can whip anybody ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... God bless the long-armed, long-legged, fightin', gen'rous, kind-hearted cuss! An' thar's Paul, too, lookin' fur all the world like a scholar, crammed full o' book l'arnin', 'stead o' the ring-tailed forest runner, half hoss, half alligator, that he is, though he's got the book l'arnin' an' is one o' the greatest scholars the world ever seed! An' that's Tom Ross, with his mouth openin' ez ef he wuz 'bout to speak a word, though he'll conclude, likely, that he oughtn't, an' all three o' 'em are pow'ful glad to see us comin' in our ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... about Dunsany and georgette and alligator pears; and Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks' Club, up above Schirmer's furniture store on Elm Street, at about five in the afternoon on his way home from the cold-storage plant. The Brewster place was honeycombed with sleeping porches ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... you ever see an alligator Come up to the air from the mud, Staring blindly under the full glare of noon? Have you seen the stabled horses at night Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern? Have you ever walked in darkness When an unknown door was open before ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... "You forget about alligator bags," corrected Mollie. "What would we do for valises and satchels if we had no alligators, I'd ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... hue were put into great machines where heavy squares of copper, set in powerful presses, stamped upon them various patterns or impressions. The designs engraved on the dies were imitations of the texture of every known sort of fancy leather. There was alligator, lizard skin, pigskin, snakeskin and sealskin; even grained leather was copied. So perfect was the likeness that it seemed impossible to tell the embossed and artificially ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... soft night wind, when he saw a great black head appear on the surface and rapidly approach the shore where he was standing. Presently, as the monster emerged from the water, he found himself face to face with a great alligator rushing upon ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... hedge-schoolmaster has scattered them so loosely and profusely over this lovely land? Whip the wretch with rattlesnakes! Memphis indeed!—as if Memphis with its monolithic statues needed commemoration on the banks of the Mississippi! A new Osiris—a new Sphinx, "half horse, half alligator, with a sprinkling of the snapping turtle." At every forking of the roads, whenever I inquired my way, in my ears rang those classic homonyms, till my soul was sick of sounds. "Swampville" was euphony, and "Mud Creek" soft music ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... at night; and that at last we reached a large town, close to the sea, which was, I have since learned, Guayaquil. I remember seeing some magnificent fruits—pine-apples, oranges, lemons, limes, alligator-pears, melons, and many others—and eating some of them, or probably I should not have recollected the circumstance. The place was very busy, and far more people were moving about than I had been accustomed to see at Quito; and in the harbour were a number of vessels—large ships and small ones, ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... take 'em yarroman like 'it Hinchinbrook; my word, plenty of alligator sit down along of water. He been parter that fellow like ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... in recent years among Retriever breeders to fall into the common error of exaggerating a particular point, and of breeding dogs with a head far too fine and narrow—it is what has been aptly called the alligator head—lacking in brain capacity and power of jaw. A perfect head should be long and clean, but neither weak nor snipy. The eye should be placed just halfway between the occiput and the ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... interesting to say. You learn how the natives obtain sugar, palm-wine, and rubber; what is the use of the toucan's huge beak, and how plants secure the fertilisation of their flowers. You watch the tricks of the monkey, the humming-bird's courtship, the lying in wait of the alligator, and all the ceaseless activity of the forest—that forest so monotonous in its general features, but fascinating beyond measure when the varied life-histories working out within it are realised—and you ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... a rush like that of the Atlamalcan tugboat and an immense alligator surged up from the muddy depths, and kept pace with the craft, as though tied to it. His piggish eyes surveyed the two men as if meditating the crushing of the boat and its occupants in one terrific crunch, like the hippopotamus of the Nile. He partly opened and smacked his jaws, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... frequently involves hardship and peril, requiring arduous journeys by dog-team in the frozen north and by launch in the snake-haunted and alligator-filled Everglades of Florida, while the enumerator whose work lies among the dangerous criminal classes of the greater cities must take his life in his ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... their face and raged like one possessed. Several times he invited me to go home with him, but I was afraid to trust myself. I pitied the poor little man so much that finally I yielded, and went home with him one evening. When we arrived I saw she was mad, and the devil was in her as big as an alligator. So I determined on my course. After supper her husband said very kindly: 'Come, wife, stop your little affairs, and let us have prayers.' To this she replied: 'I will have none of your praying about me.' Speaking ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... two small heads of lettuce; four medium sized tomatoes; one alligator pear. Place lettuce leaves on plate with two or three slices of tomatoes. Cover with rings of alligator pear cut very thin. ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... moisture will do for a country, slip your canoe from a Florida steamer into the Ocklawaha River. It is as odd as its name, and appears to be hopelessly undecided as to whether it had better continue in the fish and alligator and drainage business, or devote itself to raising live-oak and cypress-trees, with Spanish moss for mattresses as a ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... got in that alligator, Sheriff, that you're so careful not to set it down and forget it?" the chief ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... Greenfield had placed a number of enigmatic articles, some of which would be employed as props in one manner or another during the evening's work. The most prominent item was a small suitcase in red alligator hide. Dr. Ormond, however, passed up the suitcase, took a small flat wooden plate from the table and returned to ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz

... Chicago, gallantry and candour go hand in hand. A legend of the envious East represents that a Chicago young man travelling in Louisiana wrote to his sweetheart: "DEAR MAMIE,—I have shot an alligator. When I have shot another, I will send you a pair of slippers." The implication is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, a base and baseless calumny. New York itself does not present a higher average of female beauty than Chicago, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... he added smiling, "are you know in some degree a separate race. They are scarcely looked upon as appertaining to the great American family. Half horse, half alligator, as they are pleased to term themselves, their roving mode of life and wild pursuits, are little removed from those of the native Indian, who scarcely inspires more curiosity among the civilized portion of the Union, than a ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... audience came with the expectation of hearing the rhetorical fire-works of a Western stump-speaker of the "half-horse, half-alligator" variety, they met novelty of an unlooked for kind. In Lincoln's entire address he neither introduced an anecdote nor essayed a witticism; and the first half of it does not contain even an illustrative figure or a poetical fancy. It was the quiet, searching exposition of the historian, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... Crocodile of the African, and the Alligator of the North American rivers, as enormous lizards; though they are now placed in a class by themselves, on account of their horny covering, which is so strong that it is almost impossible to pierce through it, and so smooth that a bullet will glance off from it. ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... trade was a slow matter and the glory of the old did not pass over to the new at once, but lingered still in mighty fleets of rafts and keel-boats and in the Homeric carousals of some ten thousand of the half-horse, half-alligator breed that nightly gathered in New Orleans. Broad-horns and mud-sills they were called in derision. A strange race of aquatic pioneers, jeans and leather clad, the rifle and the setting-pole equally theirs, they came out of every stream down which a scow could be thrust ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... in motion. The notion of meeting an alligator might have appealed to him, but not under these circumstances. He struck out like a madman as he struggled to get to a point where he could reach up and clasp the eager hands extended down to him, for he had heard the splash ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... country, the great trees that fall before him,—the brushwood that he lops away with a sweep of his tool,—the unfamiliar herbs which he tramples under foot,—the lazy fish-like reptile that scarce stirs out of his path as he descends to the neighboring creek to drink,—the fierce alligator-like tortoise, with the large limbs and small carpace, that he sees watching among the reeds for fish and frogs, just as he reaches the water,—and the little hare-like rodent, without a tail, that he startles by the way,—all attest, by the antiqueness ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... creature rise to the top of the water. Hop was English, and Englishmen are apt to call all saurians by this name. I should not have expected to see the real alligator so near the salt water, for I had heard that only crocodiles proper lived or thrived in salt water. It may have been one washed out from some bayou by the high water, which was prevailing at this time, or it may have been the real crocodile. I did not stop then to reason about this ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic

... whole, though the alligator can hardly claim any attention from us in these stories, owing to his manner of locomotion, and some other circumstances, yet I think I will introduce him to the reader, as I have two or three anecdotes about his tribe, which ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... State of Sao Paulo are flour, mandioca, cassava, bran, tanned hides, horns, fruit (pineapples, bananas, cocoanuts, abacates (alligator pears), oranges, tangerines, etc.), wax, timber (chiefly jacaranda or rosewood), a yearly decreasing quantity of cotton, steel and iron, mica, goldsmith's dust, dried and preserved fish, scrap sole leather, salted and dry hides, wool, castor seed or ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the night they returned, and told me that they saw great tracks of buffaloes there, but none of the buffaloes themselves; neither did they find any fresh water. They also saw some green-turtle in the sea and one alligator. ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... the catastrophe. They'll all buy shoes like they was centipedes. Frank Goodwin will take cases of 'em. The Geddies want about eleven pairs between 'em. Clancy is going to invest the savings of weeks, and even old Doc Gregg wants three pairs of alligator-hide slippers if they've got any tens. Blanchard got a look at Miss Hemstetter; and as he's a Frenchman, no less than a dozen pairs ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... rivalling a rainbow suddenly overspread Kettle's face and his mouth came open like an alligator's. ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... Membre, Douay, and others, the trustiest of his followers. On the twenty-fifth, they set sail; the "Joly" and the little frigate "Belle" following. They coasted the shore of Cuba, and landed at the Isle of Pines, where La Salle shot an alligator, which the soldiers ate; and the hunters brought in a wild pig, half of which he sent to Beaujeu. Then they advanced to Cape St. Antoine, where bad weather and contrary winds long detained them. A load ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... Bays. Meet a Malay Fleet, and communicate with one of the Proas. Explore Port Essington. Attacked by Natives in Knocker's Bay. Anchor in Popham Bay. Visit from the Malays. Examination of Van Diemen's Gulf, including Sir George Hope's Islands and Alligator Rivers. Survey of the Northern Shore of Melville Island, and Apsley Strait. Interview with the Natives of Luxmore Head. Procure wood at Port Hurd. Natives. Clarence Strait. Leave the Coast, and arrival ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... menagerie contains a female elephant only, the male having died since my arrival in Paris, three dromedaries, two camels, five lions, male and female, a white bear, a brown bear, a mangousta, a civet, an alligator, an ostrich, and several other scarce and curious animals, the number and variety of which receive frequent additions. In other parts of the garden are inclosures for land and sea fowls, as well ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... read only lingered to make note of the address, which was the name of a noted cafe. Having done this, he was turning to continue his walk when his path was barred by a specimen of humanity, who stood full six foot six in a pair of alligator leather boots, on the banquette by his side, "So ye're goin', air ye?" was the half-interrogative speech that proceeded from the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... well," in a tone of haughty resignation. She turned to a booth that had been made of turkey-red chintz in one corner of the room. She lit a small red lamp and sat down before a little bamboo table. A toy angel from a Christmas tree hung above her. A stuffed alligator sat up, on its hind legs, beside her—a porcelain bell hung on a red ribbon about its neck—to grin with a cheerful uncanniness on the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... of this creature seems to indicate an alligator or crocodile; which probably Marco had not seen, and only describes from an imperfect account of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... large alligator, about twenty feet long, rising to the surface of the water, close to our camp. He appeared to be attentively watching our sheep, which were feeding by the side of the river, on the Dolichos and Ipomoeas which were growing on the sand. The natives here ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... the female voter is a pantaloonatic, a half horse, half alligator kind of woman, who looks like Dr. Mary Walker and has the appearance of one who has risen hastily in the night at the alarm of fire and dressed herself partially in her own garments and partially in her husband's. This is a popular error. In Wyoming, where female suffrage ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... "Seringueiro" Tapping a Rubber Tree Smoking the Rubber-Milk Forest Interior A Fig-Tree Completely Overgrown with Orchids Chico, The Monkey Turtle Eggs on the Sand-Bank The Pirarucu The Last Resting-Place of the Rubber-Workers "Seringueiros" Joao Floresta Creek Lake Innocence Alligator from Lake Innocence Another Alligator from Lake Innocence Rubber-Workers' Home near Lake Innocence Harpooning a Large Sting-Ray Shooting Fish on Lake Innocence The Pirarucu Amazonian Game-Fish The Track of the Anaconda—The Sucuruju The Paca ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... which were laid at a depth of nearly two feet from the surface— the mother first excavating a hole and afterwards, covering it up with sand. The place is discoverable only by following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... turns in that underwater causeway, and the edges of each turn were slippery slopes, up which an alligator certainly could climb, but that afforded not the least chance to a man whose foot once stepped too far and slid. And not only were there unexpected turns at different intervals, but there were gaps in the causeway of a yard or so in at least ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... and sometimes very cold; and that we stopped at very uncivilised-looking resting-places at night; and that at last we reached a large town, close to the sea, which was, I have since learned, Guayaquil. I remember seeing some magnificent fruits—pine-apples, oranges, lemons, limes, alligator-pears, melons, and many others—and eating some of them, or probably I should not have recollected the circumstance. The place was very busy, and far more people were moving about than I had been accustomed to see at Quito; and in the harbour were a number of vessels—large ships and ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... pig is by no means the strangest animal which has made its home on board a man-of-war. In a small gunboat in China some years ago the ship's company acquired a so-called tame alligator. Algernon, as they christened him, came on board as a youngster a few weeks old and about four feet long, and soon developed a habit of appearing when the decks were being scrubbed in the mornings, when ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... ingress and egress, without being exposed to observation; and, this tenement being furnished with the apparatus of a magician, such as globes, telescopes, a magic-lanthorn, a skeleton, a dried monkey together with the skins of an alligator, otter, and snake, the conjurer himself took possession of his castle, after having distributed printed advertisements containing the particulars of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... of the bay was a nunatak, which from its shape at once received the name of the Alligator. In front, apparently fifteen miles off, was another nunatak, the Hippo, and four definite outcrops—Delay Point and Avalanche Rocks—could be seen along the mainland. The sight of this bare rock was very pleasing, as we had begun to think we were going to find nothing ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... other, was in manifest peril, should he miss the swinging trapeze at the finish of his flight, of landing within the wide open jaws of an enormous hippopotamus—designated in the picture as, "The Behemoth of Holy Writ." An alligator, sitting upright, and bearing the legend that he was one of the "Sacred Crocodiles of the Nile, to which the Indian Mothers Throw Their Babes," was leering with a hopeful smile at the proximity of a be-spangled lady equestrian, ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... western shore—where the coast range once more reasserts itself—we find in Western Australia, the Swan, the Irwin, the Greenough, the Murchison, and the Gascoyne, the Ashburton, the Fortescue, the De Grey, and another Fitzroy. On the north coast, we meet with the Victoria, the Daly, the Adelaide, the Alligator, the Liverpool, the Roper, the Limmen Bight, the Macarthur, the Robinson and the Calvert, the Albert—which is the outlet for the Nicholson and the Gregory—the Leichhardt and the Flinders, the Norman, the Gilbert, the Einesleigh, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... an Alligator.] There is a Creature here called Kobbera guion, resembling an Alligator. The biggest may be five or six foot long, speckled black and white. He lives most upon the Land but will take the water and dive under it: hath a long blew forked tongue like a sting, which he puts forth and hisseth and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter 'the Old Country,' would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various

... mean you needn't let yourself feel them. There's something in the idea: be callous as an alligator and nothing ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... for our paper, giving the small list of guests and the long line of refreshments—which included alligator-pear salad, right out of the Smart Set Cook Book. Moreover, when Jefferson appeared in Topeka that fall, Priscilla Winthrop, who had met him through some of her Duxbury friends in Boston, invited ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... best observed at night when the lizard was on the outside of a pane of glass, with a candle on the inside. There is, I believe, no class of living creatures in which the gradations can be traced with such minuteness and regularity as in this; where, from the small animal just described, to the huge alligator or crocodile, a chain may be traced containing almost innumerable links, of which the remotest have a striking resemblance to each other, and seem, at first view, to ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... is found in great abundance in the woods about the mouth of the river, and, for aught I know, in every part of the country. You perceive that I am constantly discovering new luxuries for my table. Not having been able to kill a crocodile (alligator), I have offered a reward for one, which I mean to eat, dressed in soup, fricassees, and steaks. Oh! how you long to ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... and made known the fact. The polite manager, Eddie S. Riddick, Esq., soon saw Capt. Busby, and his gondola was chartered to carry the party to the Lake. Mr. Riddick made every preparation necessary for them, but one of the parties heard that an alligator was on exhibition near the hotel, and thinking that it was brought from the Lake, at once provided himself with a rifle and a large quantity of fixed ammunition. All were then ready and they left for the canal, where ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold

... overpowering fear. We plunged ahead at random, when we suddenly found the water pouring through the bottom of our "schooner." The horses reared and plunged, snorting in terror probably at the near approach of some water snake or alligator. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... the westward. Shore skirted by rocks; timber noble, and the forest clear of brushwood, enabling us to penetrate with ease as far as caution permitted. Traces of wild beasts numerous and recent, but none discovered. Fresh-water streams coloured as yesterday, and the trail of an alligator from one of them to the sea. This dark forest, where the trees shoot up straight and tall, and are succeeded by generation after generation varying in stature, but struggling upward, strikes the imagination with pictures ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... she said aloud. "There never was such a lovable idiot before. He's just like the alligator in the old rhyme, who wouldn't go along, and wouldn't keep still, but just kept bobbing up ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... lake, watching the moonbeams play with the ripples stirred by the soft night wind, when he saw a great black head appear on the surface and rapidly approach the shore where he was standing. Presently, as the monster emerged from the water, he found himself face to face with a great alligator rushing ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... Acts of "Hamlet"!—the first question started with 'G.tt. p..cha' 'Al..g.tor' and invited the candidate to fill in the missing letters correctly. Now I was morally certain that the words 'gutta-percha' and 'alligator' did not occur in the first three Acts of "Hamlet"; but having carefully re-read them I invited this examining body to explain itself. The answer I got was that, to understand Shakespeare, a student must first understand the English Language! Some of you on leaving Cambridge will go out—a company ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... of Apicius[A] lament that America and turtle were not discovered in his days. There were the guanas, too, in abundance, with their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these are excellent food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the alligator, and its diminutive European representative, the harmless lizard. Muscovy ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine apples abounded, oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains, love apples, Abbogada pears (better known by the name of subaltern's butter), and many other fruits, all ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... two-year-olds. At what rate these last would have increased depends very much, I suspect, on their chance of food. The limit of life and growth in cold-blooded animals seems to depend very much on their amount of food. The boa, alligator, shark, pike, and I suppose the trout also, will live to a great age, and attain an enormous size, give them but range enough; and the only cause why there are trout of ten pounds and more in the Thames lashers, while one of four pounds is rare here, is simply that the Thames ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... discussing the Aladdin-like feast I secretly and faithfully promised my chef a material increase in wages. I had never suspected him of being such a genius, nor myself of being such a Pantegruelian disciple. I must mention the alligator pear salad. For three weeks I had been trying to buy alligator pears in the town hard by. These came from Paris. The chef had spoken to me about them that morning, asking me when I had ordered them. Inasmuch ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... by an iguana, or big lizard, came waddling and wheezing down to the water, looking for all the world like a baby alligator. ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... men did their duty too, as, for instance, was the case with Mr. John Effingham; but Paul Blunt-Powis- Effingham finished the job. As for Mr. Steadfast Dodge, sir, I say nothing, unless it be to add that he was nowhere near me in that transaction; and if any man felt like an alligator in Lent, on that occasion, it was your ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... were great abundance of waters and lakes, and in one of them our people saw a sort of alligator seven feet long and above a foot wide at the belly. This animal being disturbed threw itself into the lake, which was by no means deep; and though somewhat alarmed by its frightful appearance and fierceness, our people killed it with their spears. The Spaniards learnt afterwards to consider ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... dangerous. It might bring him to a sudden death from heart disease. Happily, he had had a very good week indeed with his rents. He trotted about all day on Mondays and on Tuesday mornings, gathering his rents, and on Tuesday afternoons he usually experienced the assuaged content of an alligator after the weekly meal. Otherwise there was no knowing what might not have been the disastrous consequences of Helen's barefaced robbery and of her unscrupulous, unrepentant defence of that robbery. For days and days he had ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... of desperate men! I do remember an apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... the skillery-scalery alligator with the humps on his tail, and his brother, another skillery-scalery chap, whose tail was double jointed, were taking a walk through the woods together just as Uncle ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis

... under a crag in a deep glen. Mere amassing soon gave way to discrimination, which led to picking out a favorite fern. This was chosen, I now realize, with a woeful lack of fine feeling. I called it "The Alligator" from its fancied resemblance to my brother's alligator-skin traveling-bag. But admiration of this fern brought a dawning consciousness that certain natural objects were preferable to others. This led, in years, to an enthusiasm for collecting ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... The Tree with the Agate Beads The Striped Blanket The Alan and the Hunters The Man and the Alan Sogsogot The Mistaken Gifts The Boy Who Became a Stone The Turtle and the Lizard The Man with the Cocoanuts The Carabao and the Shell The Alligator's Fruit Dogedog ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole

... her mother in the elevator; there was a more public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda at a small table against the wall. There she had clams—she adored iced clams—creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes bordure, alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back of the dinner check—Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven—placed ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Sheridan's "Rivals," noted for her blunders in the use of fine or learned words, as in the use of "allegory" for "alligator." ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... and the little baby alligator that froze to death in its tank," added Keith. "But a bear like this would be nicer than any of them. As soon as papa comes home I am going to ask him to ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston

... time—and there's somep'n the trouble with grandpa: it makes him sick to smell violets: he had it ever since he was a little boy, and he can't help it; and he hates animals, and they keep sendin' her Airedales and Persian kittens, and then there was that alligator came from Florida and upset Kitty Silver terribly—and so, you see, grandpa just hates the whole ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... did not want to take the big man on the trip for various reasons. "No, maybe not, Koku. Your skin is pretty tough. But I understand there are deep pools of water in the land where we are going, and in them lives a fish that has a hide like an alligator and a jaw like a shark. If you fall in it's all ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... head mistress of the Diocesan School at Amherst near Rangoon, and her pupils were bathing in the sea when one of them was bitten in the leg by a shark or alligator. Alarmed by this terrible shock she lost her balance and was being carried away by the tide when her sister and the head mistress both went to the rescue. Miss Grace Darling had succeeded in getting hold of her when she too was bitten and disappeared under the water. The sister behind ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... collection of curious objects is dimly discernible; not articles of furniture, for these are few, but things appertaining to the craft in which Shebotha is supposed to have skill—demonology. There are the bones and skins of monkeys, with those of snakes, lizards, and other reptiles; teeth of the alligator and jaguar; the proboscis-like snouts of the tapir and tamanoir, or great ant-bear, with a variety of other like oddities, furnished by the indigenous creatures of the Chaco in every department of the zoological world—birds, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... them are outlets of the Mississippi, which begins to shed off its waters more than 300 miles from its mouth. These bayous are deep, sometimes narrow, sometimes wide, with islets in their midst. They and their contiguous swamps are the great habitat of the alligator and the fresh-water shark—the gar. Numerous species of water and wading fowl fly over them, and plunge through their dark tide. Here you may see the red flamingo, the egret, the trumpeter-swan, the blue heron, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... light in his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a warm flush to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... note that the art of standing began with birds. Frogs sit, and, as far as I know, every reptile, be it lizard, crocodile, alligator, or tortoise, lays its body on the ground when not actually carrying it. And these have each four fat legs. Contrast the flamingo, which, having only two, and those like willow wands, tucks up one of them and sleeps poised high on the other, like a ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... Penrod, "I will first call your at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!" He pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, "That's him." Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: "NEXT, you see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... remained at Kupang till June 3—twenty-eight days—enjoying the hospitality of the Dutch. Peron made several excursions for collecting purposes, and once shot an alligator nine feet long, which he skinned. He had the hide and head carried down to the port by Malays on long bamboo poles, this method of conveyance being necessitated by the superstitious refusal of the natives to ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... there hung, too high to be conveniently dusted, a few stuffed birds, and one small alligator. 'Some of these days,' said Abner to himself, 'I am goin' to get on a step-ladder and look at them birds and things; I never did properly know ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... animals "jealousy," be it that of a fish or a stag, is little more than a transient rage at a rival who comes in presence of the female he himself covets or has appropriated. This murderous wrath at a rival is a feeling which, as a matter of course a human savage may share with a wolf or an alligator; and in its ferocious indulgence primitive man places himself on a level with brutes—nay, below them, for in the struggle he often kills the female, which an animal never does. This wrath is not jealousy as we know it; it lacks a number of essential moral, intellectual, imaginative elements as ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... vines, which hung in festoons from the branches of the trees, uniting them in one vast network. I began to fear that the youngsters had, in their hurry to overtake Spider, slipt from aloft and fallen into the water, where they might have stuck in the mud, or been carried off by some voracious alligator watching for his prey. Going a little farther, I again shouted, when a cry came from among the branches above my head: I looked up, expecting to see the lads, but could not make them out. At last ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... subordinate portion of the general life, however, is in the nervous system of the body, and in proportion as the brain declines in development the relative amount of psychic energy in the body is greater. Thus the body of the alligator after decapitation is capable of sensation and voluntary acts, such as pushing away an offending body with its foot. The character of the life in the body is explained by physiology and sarcognomy. Its universal ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various

... too many tin cups or gourds of fiery liquor excited the always ready pugnacity of the men. They were ready to brag of their valor, and to put their boasts to the test. They were "half horse, half alligator," according to their own favorite expression, equally prepared with knife or pistol, fist, or the trained thumb that gouged out an antagonist's eye, unless he speedily called for mercy. "I'm a Salt River roarer!" bawled one in the presence of a foreign diarist. "I can outrun, outjump, throw ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... log; Hard pillow, but a soldier's head That's half the time in brake and bog Must never think of softer bed. The owl is hooting to the night, The cooter crawling o'er the bank, And in that pond the flashing light Tells where the alligator sank. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... so many things to think of and talk about, that she had not thought much about Harvey except at night. Then that awful alligator haunted her until she wanted to call her mamma, but she had not ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... the Smithsonian Institution, also mentions another similar head as found at Copan. This, he says, is on the side of an altar similar to that described by Stephens, except that the top wants the hieroglyphics. The sides have human figures similar to the other; on one of these is the head of an "Alligator." ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas

... crabbed, or getting fishy, or even mermaiding in this room, Grace," teased Cleo. "It is so effective I should rather fear the effect taking root. Just look at this real little alligator and he is actually strong enough to sit on! Did you ever see anything so cunning?" The real little alligator or crocodile was actually standing on his short hind legs, and in his front (shall we say paws?) he was holding a flat piece of wood that served for the seat of the queer stool. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... no measures toward starting, and did not even inquire where Miss Harleth was gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that was mingled with much distrust; for Grandcourt had said no word to him about her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling what might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. Still, to have put off a decision was to have made room for the waste of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... I do mean. He ran young Alec Simpson of the Courier a mile down the high road last week by the collar of his coat and the slack of his breeches. You'll have read of it, likely, in the police report. Our boys would as soon interview a loose alligator in the zoo. But you could do it, I'm thinking—an old friend ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... degenerating, and, without a Red revolution, must come to the dust. The Fannies of our island—though this I say with reluctance—are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change—that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast—he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood amongst naturalists, that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... will not deny that I am an accomplished liar—indeed, almost an habitual one. Therefore, I feel some small pique when, on the one occasion on which I stick strictly to the truth, I am accused of fraud. Pfui! say I; I refute you. "I deny the allegation, and I defy the alligator!" ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... turning instinctively to the quarter from which it came, I saw emerging from a dark fissure in the rock a vast and terrible head, with open jaws and dull, ghastly, hungry eyes—the head of a monstrous reptile resembling that of the crocodile or alligator, but infinitely larger than the largest creature of that kind I had ever beheld in my travels. I started to my feet and fled down the valley at my utmost speed. I stopped at last, ashamed of my panic and my flight, and returned to the spot on which I had left the body of my friend. It was gone; ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... of an epicure at night; she liked a comfortable quantity, and that of many varieties, and these of the best. Under the ministrations of Matilda she pleasurably disposed of clear soup, whitebait, a pair of squabs on toast with asparagus tips, and an alligator pear salad. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... field of natural science study for the common schools. Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat-fish, sword-fish, turtle, alligator, and many more. Among native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, beans, huckleberries, grapes, strawberries, cranberries, tobacco, pawpaw, mulberry, haw, plum, apple, and persimmon. Of trees are oak, hickory, walnut, cypress, pine, birch, beech, and others. ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... at their ease, adroitly turn them on their backs; and as they turn many more than they can devour in one night, the Indians often profit by their cunning. The jaguar pursues the turtle quite into the water, and when not very deep, digs up the eggs; they, with the alligator, the heron, and the gallinago vulture ore the most formidable enemies the little turtles have. Humboldt justly remarks, When we reflect on the difficulty that the naturalist finds in getting out the body of ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... inhabitants, on learning the joyful news, carried the knight and the Lindwurm in triumph into the city of Bruenn, where they have ever since treasured up the memento of their former tyrant. The animal, or reptile, thus preserved, is undoubtedly of the crocodile or alligator species, although I regret it was not in my power to examine it more particularly, evening having set in when I saw it in the arched passage leading to the town-hall of the city where it has been suspended. I fear also that any attempt to count the distinguishing bones would be fruitless, the ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various

... Robinson Crusoe feeling in Mr. Turnbull, and he looked about almost disconsolately for some sign of life. What sort of life he expected it to be if it appeared, he did not very clearly know. He has since confessed that he thinks that in his subconsciousness he expected an alligator. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his alligator-skin grip, and took out a Bible and a new self-cocking weepon that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one of the bull-dog variety, and had the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... scrambled out on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the red head of Namgay Doola ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... professionally propelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they were a class unto themselves—"half horse, half alligator," a contemporary styled them. Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The river towns suffered sadly at the hands ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... speck in one of the top corners at the back of the cabinet. This was not the first time she had seen it, and she had always determined to look at it closer; but the cabinet stood on carved feet, like the claws of an alligator, and Grace's outstretched hand could not quite reach the back. But now the cabinet might be going away she felt that she must delay no longer, so she quickly crossed the floor and fetched the highest hassock from under the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... a skillful man with horses, and had never liked an automobile half as much. He loved all animals and they seemed to love him too. At the present time his pets consisted of a small woolly dog, an angora cat, a parrot, and an alligator. The last named pet he kept in an old wash tub, half full of water, and called him Percy. He used to talk to all his pets as if they were human beings, Percy included, and many people had ventured the opinion that his brain was not quite as good ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... hundred and twenty feet long—imagine such a monster—the existence of which is now proved beyond a cavil, by the remains, deeply imbedded in the hard blue lias rocks, and which remains are now in our possession. What a terrific monster it must have been! We look with horror at an alligator of twenty or thirty feet, but imagine an animal of that species extending his huge bulk to one hundred and twenty feet. Were they all destroyed when the waters were separated from the hand, or did they gradually become extinct when the earth was no longer a suitable habitation ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... She had taken refuge in the cabin of Araujo, and the cabin had just been upset by a powerful blow from the third alligator. Minha was flying aft, pursued by the monster, who was not six feet ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... energetic spirit of their leader, remonstrated with him and proposed to return to their companions; but, disregarding them, he pressed on in his new enterprise. In wading a small stream, one of the men was carried off by an alligator, and a day or so after, another was bitten and killed by a rattle-snake. Terror seized upon his men, and all their persuasions proving fruitless, they determined to assassinate him and return. They did so, only to find the colony dispersed and nowhere to be found. After many hazardous adventures ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... insignificant. We occasionally came across negros, of whom we cautiously inquired as to the route and towns, and by the assistance of our map and the stars, got along very well indeed, until we came to the Suwanee River. We had intended to cross this at Columbus or Alligator. When within six miles of the river we stopped at some negro huts to get some food. The lady who owned the negros was a widow, who was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her husband had died before the war began. An old negro woman told ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... hotel always stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a bony woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day. And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare. For Maggie Brown was ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... was a stray "dingo," or wild dog, he gave a yell to frighten the brute away, and hearing it go, he calmly went to sleep again. Had he known who his caller really was, he would not have felt so comfortable. In the morning on the damp ground below, he found the tracks of a fourteen foot alligator, which was also out prospecting, but which, fortunately, had not thought of investigating ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... The Western States are the pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun, very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the arts and sciences of Europe with the rifle ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... shadow of it, is not to be dreamt of; and our residence, as far as I can learn, is to be a half-furnished house in the midst of rice-swamps, where our habitual company will be our slaves, and our occasional visitors an alligator or two ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... Laing again, "the principal chief or king of this part of the Timmannee country, is about ninety years of age, with a mottled, shrivelled-up skin, resembling in colour that of an alligator more than that of a human being, with dim, greenish eyes, far sunk in his head, and a bleached, twisted beard, hanging down about two feet from his chin; like the king of the opposite district he wore a necklace of coral and leopard's teeth, but his mantle was brown and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... never heerd o' Jack Rale! Ol' river man, half hoss, half alligator; uster tend bar in Saint Louee. He's up yere now, a sellin' forty-rod ter sojers. Cum up 'long with him frum Beardstown. Got a shack back yere, an' is a gittin' rich—frien' o' mine. Yer just ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... dreadful disappointment! Not a deer, or a sign of one, to be seen, and nothing living within a mile. But no! There is something moving! It is—yes, it is a big Alligator, lying down there on the rocks! After looking for a few minutes with disgust at the ugly creature, the Jaguar said to himself, "He must have come on shore while I was asleep. But what matters it! An Alligator! Very different indeed from five fat young deer! Ah me! I wish he had not that ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... impregnated with gases that it produces fever or cholera when drunk, yet it is—at least when it does not mingle with the salt water—so clear, that one might see every marking on a boa- constrictor or alligator, if he glided along ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... netting. He hoped that Ma would not hang them in the hall or the living-room. And that rocker, for which she yearned, was probably the one with the creaking coiled springs—the one that had leaped after him and clashed its jaws like an alligator. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... seems to be a habit of the heron family, for the same thing occurred on the Tomoca River, Fla., the home of the alligator, when a small, brilliantly blue heron flew ahead of our boat for several miles, always stopping to wait for us, ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... times during that journey he experienced fits of giddiness, and between whiles he speculated hazily as to the size of the blister the sun was raising on his back. For amusement he tried by looking ahead to decide whether the muddy object he saw lying on the water's edge was a log of wood or an alligator. Only very soon he had to give that up. No fun in it. Always alligator. One of them flopped into the river and all but capsized the canoe. But this excitement was over directly. Then in a long empty reach he was very grateful to a troop of monkeys who came right down on the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... and frequently found in other States, were the result of intention rather than accident. These are sometimes called "Effigy Mounds." In Wisconsin, even implements, as well as animals, are symbolized. The beaver, the tortoise, the elephant, the serpent, the alligator seem to be their favorite animals, whose images they have endeavored to perpetuate in mounds, of course on a large scale. In Adams county, Ohio, on a steep bluff, 150 feet above the level of Brush Creek, may be ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth

... to living rushes or placed in tufts of grass. They lay from six to ten eggs of a creamy or pale buff color sparingly blotched with chestnut. Size 1.60 x 1.15. Data.—Avery's Island, Louisiana, May 7, 1896. Ten eggs. Nest of dry rushes, woven to standing ones growing around an "alligator hole" in a marsh. Collector, ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... Timothy Turtle said to his young friend, old Mr. Crow—"I suppose Mr. Alligator is ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey

... nutmegs; that's a cap sheef that bangs the bush—it's a real Yankee patent invention." With that all the gentlemen set up a laugh, you might have heerd away down to Sandy Hook, and the Gineral gig-gobbled like a great turkey-cock—the half nigger, half alligator-like looking villain as he is. I tell you what, Mr. Slick,' said the Professor, 'I wish with all my heart them 'ere damned nutmegs were in the bottom of the sea.' That was the first oath I ever heerd him let slip: ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... and make with distended jaws for the swimmer. The saint, of course, orders the beast back just at the moment when all seemed over, and is instantly obeyed. The characteristics of the monster could not be more closely identical with those of the crocodile or alligator, had the incident been ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the stillness of the ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... dreaming of Ingolby. He's done. He's a back number. There's nothing he's done that isn't on the tumble since last night. The financial gang that he downed are out already against him. They'll have his economic blood. He made a splash while he was at it, but the alligator's got him. It's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... me, Massa Ossifer, and I must tooken my chance to go up in de boat. Better hab my froat cut 'n be chawed up by a big alligator. Was you ever bit by ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER GRANVILLE has told the Times how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore you to tell me how you have managed to live for so many years when all your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... for all that you do not sympathize with them. No doubt you know the Zulu way of cooking tomatoes and the Zulu prayer before blowing one's nose; but for all that you don't understand them as well as I do, who don't know an assegai from an alligator. You are more learned, Chadd, but I am more Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians of this earth are always championed by people who are their antithesis? Why is it? You are sagacious, you are benevolent, you are well informed, but, Chadd, you are not savage. Live no longer ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... while they were crossing. Uncle Paul and Arthur then took up Marian and placed her on their shoulders, putting their arms round each other's necks to support her. Tim then waded back to meet them; while I went behind, beating the water furiously with my stick, so that no alligator or shark would have ventured near us. My uncle and Arthur, being both of good height, were able to keep Marian out of the water, and we happily got across without any accident. She then insisted on being put down, declaring ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... that you are going to have trouble," he said, as I locked the alligator bag. "Darned if I like starting ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... sleeping in their canoe. While we were engaged over our fish, I on a sudden looked up, and saw a huge animal of the tiger species stealing catlike towards the doctor, attracted probably by the carcass of the alligator. The creature seemed at that moment about to make its fatal spring. I had my gun providentially by my side. I shrieked out to the doctor to be on his guard, and at the same moment raised my weapon to my shoulder to fire. He had the large knife with which he ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... lamp, was a silver vase with three yellow tulips in it, and Cecil, wandering about, came upon a double photograph frame, back of the vase, that made her gasp. She picked it up and stared at it. Between the alligator edgings, facing each other obliquely, but with the greatest amity, were Mr. Thomas Denby in the fashion of ten years before, very handsome, very well-groomed, with the startled expression which any definite ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... aggressively disposed animals, like cowardly men, are apt to try battle with the unlikeliest adversaries. A missionary from India tells the story of an alligator who was enjoying a noonday sleep on the bank of a river, when an immense tiger emerged from the jungle, made straight for the sleeping saurian until within leaping distance, when he sprang on the alligator's back, and gained a strangle hold before the sleeping ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... exported while others are practically unknown here. The Cuban mango is not of the best, but they are locally consumed by the million. Only a few of the best are produced and those command a fancy price even when they are obtainable. The aguacate, or alligator pear, is produced in abundance. Cocoanuts are a product largely of the eastern end of the island, although produced in fair supply elsewhere. The trees are victims of a disastrous bud disease that has attacked them in recent years causing heavy ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... mistress had taken effect, and then continued. "And then he says to me, 'Wiggleswick, there ain't going to be no grand wedding. You know me.'—And I does, ma'am. The outlandish things he does, ma'am, would shock an alligator.—'I should forget the day,' says he. 'I should lose the ring. I should marry the wrong party. I should forget to kiss the bridesmaids. Lord knows what I shouldn't do. So we're going up to London to be married on the Q.T., and don't you ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... "Alligator," answered Dain shortly, with a careless glance towards the creek. "The darker the night," he continued, "the shorter will be our road, for then we could keep in the current of the main stream, but if it is light—even no more than now—we must follow the small channels of sleeping ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... were put into great machines where heavy squares of copper, set in powerful presses, stamped upon them various patterns or impressions. The designs engraved on the dies were imitations of the texture of every known sort of fancy leather. There was alligator, lizard skin, pigskin, snakeskin and sealskin; even grained leather was copied. So perfect was the likeness that it seemed impossible to tell the embossed and artificially ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... children, saying that their mother had gone to her brother's house, and that he would take them to her at once. Placing the two boys on his shoulders he walked along till he came to a river. He set down Nir and carried Sarwar safely across, but as he was going back for the other, behold, an alligator seized him. It was the will of God: what remedy is there against the writing of Fate? The two boys, separated by the river, sat down and wept in their sorrow. In the early morning a washerman was up and spreading his clothes. He heard the two boys weeping and came to see. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... river from Para to the sources of the Madeira, through the heart of an enchanted land, a land wastefully rich in tropical wonders, a romantic land where all the birds and flowers and animals were of the museum varieties, and where the alligator and the crocodile and the monkey seemed as much at home as if they were in the Zoo. Also, he told an astonishing tale about COCA, a vegetable product of miraculous powers, asserting that it was so nourishing and so strength-giving that the native of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... out. A grass-walled house was built. On the fertile, volcanic soil he had wrested from the jungle and jungle beasts were growing five hundred cocoanut trees, five hundred papaia trees, three hundred mango trees, many breadfruit trees and alligator-pear trees, to say nothing of vines, bushes, and vegetables. He developed the drip of the hills in the canyons and worked out an efficient irrigation scheme, ditching the water from canyon to canyon and paralleling the ditches at different altitudes. His narrow canyons ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... Dunsany and georgette and alligator pears; and Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks' Club, up above Schirmer's furniture store on Elm Street, at about five in the afternoon on his way home from the cold-storage plant. The Brewster place was honeycombed with sleeping porches and sun parlours and linen closets, ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... length of six feet, and, considering their intense pugnacity, a crab of such dimensions would be as formidable a creature as one could well imagine. And their amphibious capacity would give them an advantage against us such as at present is only to be found in the case of the alligator or crocodile. If we imagine a shark that could raid out upon the land, or a tiger that could take refuge in the sea, we should have a fair suggestion of what a terrible monster a large predatory crab might prove. And so far as zoological science goes we must, at least, admit that such a creature ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... been an alligator, fellows. Some of the natives told me there are a few in this old ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... sound I meant," said the skipper. "Sounds queer, doesn't it, in the darkness? But that's right. It's one of the great alligator fellows thrashing the water to stun the fish. This makes them turn up, and then the great ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... laid at a depth of nearly two feet from the surface— the mother first excavating a hole and afterwards, covering it up with sand. The place is discoverable only by following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... What hedge-schoolmaster has scattered them so loosely and profusely over this lovely land? Whip the wretch with rattlesnakes! Memphis indeed!—as if Memphis with its monolithic statues needed commemoration on the banks of the Mississippi! A new Osiris—a new Sphinx, "half horse, half alligator, with a sprinkling of the snapping turtle." At every forking of the roads, whenever I inquired my way, in my ears rang those classic homonyms, till my soul was sick of sounds. "Swampville" was euphony, and "Mud Creek" soft music in comparison! Beyond Dresden, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... silk sash at the waist, and open at the sides, through which the wide Mexican drawers were plainly visible; a broad, brimmed, low-crowned hat, of Spanish manufacture, with a band of silver bullion, covered his head, and boots of alligator hide, heavily ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... which these extinct reptiles must have grown. One, the Iguanodon (case 3) was an animal that measured seventy feet in length. It existed in this country; various bones of it are in this case. The remains of the fossil Alligator, known as the mosasaurus, are also here, together with the wealden lizard of Kent, which was about twenty-five feet in length, and part of Cuvier's wonderful fossil Flying Lizard, or sterodactylus, which is described as a reptile having mammalian characteristics, a bat's wings, enormous ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... hist'ry lesson, an' the question was, 'Who was Columbus?' an' the answer was, 'He was the son of er extinguished alligator;' an' Miss Carrie laughed, an' said that ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... well. Importance of water. Anecdote. Languages of Australia. Specimens. Remarks. Leave Port Darwin. Tides. Squall. Visit Port Patterson. Leave. Examine opening to the south-west. Table Hill. McAdam Range. Adventure with an Alligator. Exploring party. Discovery of the Victoria. Ascend the river. Appearance of the Country. Fitzmaurice River. Indian Hill. The ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... fossil crocodiles. The gap between the existing crocodiles and the lizards is very wide, but as we go back in geological time we meet with fossil forms which are to some extent intermediate and form a connected series. The three living genera—Crocodilus, Alligator, and Gavialis—are found in the Eocene formation, and allied forms of another genus, Holops, in the Chalk. From the Chalk backward to the Lias another group of genera occurs, having anatomical characteristics intermediate between the living crocodiles and the most ancient forms. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... gratified; but how? At the age of nineteen he went down the Mississippi to New Orleans as a flatboat hand, temporarily joining a trade many members of which at that time still took pride in being called "half horse and half alligator." After his return he worked and lived in the old way until the spring of 1830, when his father "moved again," this time to Illinois; and on the journey of fifteen days "Abe" had to drive the ox wagon which carried the household goods. Another log cabin was built, and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... when the first midges dance and warm days lure the last-year's butterfly, the scarlet of the cardinals begins to flicker through the ivory smoke of the mosses. Then the alligator leaves his winter ooze, and the widening "O" of the ripple which his gar-like nose makes, travels slowly across the sullen ponds, where the pendant gonfalons of the mosses kiss their imaginary duplicates, hanging head downward in the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... abruptly. It was Robert Visigoth. He had a straw hat in one hand and an alligator traveling bag in the other. The latter ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... right, sir; if I find some meat cooked for me, I will guarantee that I will eat it, even if it is as tough as an alligator." ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... The alligator I told you about [Post-office No. 19] was finally found in a dark corner of the cellar. It only lived two ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Tahib, as he called him, by jumping on his back and bending his forepaws over his neck. (Peter Parley's History, which Jim read at school, contained a picture of the naturalist Chatterton thus navigating an alligator, and Jim couldn't see why a tiger should not be handled the same way. He preferred, however, that some other boy should be the one ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... then I suppose we'd better keep back the Rescue from the Alligator and the Plunge down ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... button that calls the porter. Larry wore this air of official aloofness even on the street, where there were no car-windows to compromise his dignity. At the end of his run he stepped indifferently from the train along with the passengers, his street hat on his head and his conductor's cap in an alligator-skin bag, went directly into the station and changed his clothes. It was a matter of the utmost importance to him never to be seen in his blue trousers away from his train. He was usually cold and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... own quickness and dexterity. Birdlime is a device for which many plants furnish material,[166] and which is available even against large game, which is fretted and worn out by it until it becomes the prey of man. A Botocudo hunter grates the eggs of an alligator together, when he finds them on the bank, and so entices the mother.[167] The Yuroks of California sprinkled berries on the shallow bottom of a river and stretched a net a few inches below the surface of the water. Ducks diving for the berries were caught by the neck in the meshes and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... hopeful, Louis, if the Fatime were only doing her best to overhaul us in a chase; but she is like an alligator sunning himself on the water, she don't move a ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... palmettoes came the roar of the great ocean. The blue sky sparkled over us every day; now and then we met a little solitary craft; countless water-fowl were scattered about on the surface of the stream; a school of mullet was usually jumping into the air; an alligator might sometimes be seen steadily swimming across the river, with only his nose and back exposed; and nearly always, either to the right or to the left, going north or going south, were seven pelicans, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... replied the nettled count, starting and gaping as though he would have swallowed a young alligator — "de Briteesh fight like de diable! Jaun foutre de Briteesh! when they been known for fight like de diable? Ess, ess, dat true enough; dey fight de Americans like de diable — but by gar dey no fight de French-a-mans so — no no, by gar dey ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... right!" the former declared. "And that's where old Sam kept his books." He ran his thumb-nail over the significant file-marks on the handle. "Looks like an alligator had ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... gentleman," she said, "who was in the Fruit Store the day I bought the Alligator pears and dropped my pocket-book down ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... kind of you," the President replied; "persons from up here go all the way to Florida just to see a live alligator"—and so he put the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... group of natives, sitting at a feast of baked alligator tail, at the mouth of the Amaceri, near the dirty, straggling riverine town of Llano, rose in astonishment as they saw issuing from the clayey, wallowing Guamoco trail a staggering band of travelers, among them two foreigners, whose clothes were in shreds and whose beards and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... pair of very tall legs, in the shape of his own, and made them walk about a while. He was pleased with the motion. Then followed a round body covered with large scales, like those of the alligator. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous

... master's language, a tongue not to be easily translated; in fact, perfectly proof against all prying outsiders. The one way to hoodwink old Fraser is to humbug him about the great work on Thibet. That is the one soft spot in the hide of this old alligator. We have gone carefully over the reports of your secret agent at St. Heliers. Make us square with him, Captain, let him have your orders to aid us, and he can get us first hooked on to this Yankee Professor Alaric Hobbs! We will jolly him a bit, and so, get ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... "skipper," purely local, is intended to distinguish that singular fish, of the "long tom" (ZYLOSURUS, sp.) or alligator-pike, which shoots from the water and skips along by striking and flipping the surface with its tail, while keeping the rest of its pike-like body rigid and almost perpendicular. Each stroke is accomplished by a ludicrous wriggling movement. It would seem that by the impact ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... well worship without incurring the crime of idolatry. The first thing that greeted my eyes was a bull's head, with a most ferocious pair of vulture's wings on its neck. While I was surveying this, I felt something touch my hat; I looked up and discovered an immense alligator swinging from the ceiling, and fixing a monstrous pair of glass eyes upon me. A thing which seemed to me like an immense shoe, upon a nearer approach expanded itself into an Indian canoe; and a most hideous spectre with ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... potage[obs3], broth, soup, consomme, puree, spoonmeat[obs3]; pie, pasty, volauvent[obs3]; pudding, omelet; pastry; sweets &c. 296; kickshaws[obs3]; condiment &c. 393. appetizer, hors d'oeuvre[Fr]. main course, entree. alligator pear, apple &c., apple slump; artichoke; ashcake[obs3], griddlecake, pancake, flapjack; atole[obs3], avocado, banana, beche de mer[Fr], barbecue, beefsteak; beet root; blackberry, blancmange, bloater, bouilli[obs3], bouillon, breadfruit, chop suey [U.S.]; chowder, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Watson one boy child! Bye-o-baby go sleepy! What a big alligator Coming to catch ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... Hayes' administration. We trust that editors throughout the State who are blessed with this world's goods to the extent of more than one pair of pants, will send one pair at least to John Turner, Mauston, Wis., by express. We are probably as poor as any editor, but we have sent him those alligator pants that have created such a sensation in years gone by. It is true they are a little bit fringy about the bottoms, and the knees are worn through, and concealment, like a worm in the bud, has gnawed the foundation all out of them, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... stud poker, movin' pictures, the alligator pear, pneumonia and so forth had gone around talkin' about them things before they got 'em patented they never would of took in a nickel on their idea, but their friends would be draggin' down the royalties yet! The minute you tip another guy to your stunt it's yours and his both. He mightn't ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer

... you about a young alligator and a water turtle papa had. He kept the turtle in the cellar, and the alligator in an earthen tank; but when it came winter he put that in the cellar too, in a tight box with air-holes. Some time afterward he went to look at the turtle and the ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... my rifle by my side, ready for service. We rowed on, now and then knocking a young alligator on the nose as he popped his ugly head out of the water to have a ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... that he saw the most magnificent residence that he had ever beheld, the home of an old friend of his, an alligator, who possessed a number of such palatial mansions and could change his residence at any time by the simple process of ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... of the Drachenfels, in ancient times, there lived a Dragon of most hideous form. He had a hundred teeth, and his head was so large that he could swallow several victims at a time. His body was of enormous length, and in form like an alligator's, and he had a tail like ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... Paul on a Northern bound boat and bought him many little presents ere wishing him God speed. Among them and prized most highly, were two red birds and a young alligator. At five o'clock that evening came the order: "All aboard! Haul in your gang- planks!" Just then a weird musical chant was struck up by the slaves working on the levee, which was answered by the boat's crew, as she backed out ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... have detached to the island of Malta 3,250 tonnage of transports not required for the services of this island; and I have given directions to Captain Bowen, of his Majesty's troop-ship Alligator, to remain in Mahon harbour ten days from the time of the embarkation, and then proceed for Malta, and follow the orders ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... the gum; 'monkey-plums' or 'apples' and 'governor's plums.' The common guavas are rank and harsh, but the 'strawberry guava,' as it is locally called, has a delicate, subacid flavour not easily equalled. The aguacate, or alligator-pear (Persea gratissima), which was not 'introduced by the Basel missionaries from the West Indies,' is inferior to the Mexican. Connoisseurs compare its nutty flavour with that of the filbert, and eat it with pepper, salt, and the sauce of Worcester, whose fortune was made ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... far as the African is concerned, the similar apothegm once was that "the black man has no rights the white man is bound to respect;" or, as Stephen A. Douglas defined his position before an applauding audience, "I am for the white man as against the black man, and for the black man against the alligator." Recent lynching and shotgun experiences, too fresh in memory to call for reminder, and too painful in detail to describe, give us at least reason to pause before we leave our own hearthstone to seek new and distant fields for missionary labors. It remains ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... has been my hard fortune to run upon it, when a softer bed would have given a more quiet nap. This is just the present difficulty with me, for I am now tacking about among these Frenchmen in order to get afloat again, like an alligator floundering in the mud. I lost my schooner on the northeast coast of Russia—somewhere hereabouts," pointing to the precise spot on the apple; "we were up there trading in skins-and finding no means of reaching home by the road I'd come, and smelling salt water down hereaway, I've been shaping ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... what it was, there was another movement just beyond, and this time he made out plainly enough the gaping mouth, prominent eyes, and rugged back of a great alligator, followed by its waving tail, as it dived down from a cluster of tree-roots out ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... run too many shows at once. He's tryin' to keep the Gospel trade hummin' an' have his eye on all the fun that's goin' at the same time. I ain't up in the religion business myself; there ain't likely to be any wings sproutin' 'round where I'm at, but I can tell a minister from an alligator seven days in the week, an' without specs, too, an' the first time I laid eyes on that chap you've got now, I knew he wasn't the sort that made folks hop along to Heaven any faster than they ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... naked children, fat as butterballs, dabbling in a mud puddle close to the stream. The sight, coupled with the tropical-like heat and the jungle, could well make one imagine he was in Africa or India, and that the little brown bodies were the "alligator bait" of which we read. Only the 'gators were missing. The unexpected sight of a boat and a white man trying to photograph them started them both into a frightened squall. Then an indignant mother appeared, staring ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... dish satisfied me that it was edible, though intensely peppered. I ate with the appetite of an alderman, nor was it till two days after that my trader informed me I had supped so heartily on the spareribs of an alligator! It was well that the hours of digestion had gone by, for though partial to the chase, I had never loved "water fowl" of so ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... child into the water arter that fashin.' And he turned to, and at it agin, as hard as he could lay on. I believe in my soul he would have nearly killed me, if it hadn't a been for a great big nigger wench he had, called Rose. My! what a slashin' large woman, that was; half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the mammoth in her. She wore a man's hat and jacket, and her petticoat had stuff enough in it to make the mainsail of a boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges froze solid. Her neck was ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... lion, and tiger, the largest and most formidable of the terrestrial mammals of the Old World, are not here to be found; but their places are well supplied by the swamp-loving tapir, the voracious alligator, the stealthy puma, and the blood-thirsty jaguar, all well worthy of the sportsman's rifle, or of the snake-visioned native warrior's weapons—for the power of destruction in these animals during life is great, while after death they either furnish valuable skins or wholesome food. Moreover, ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... misfortune!" she sighed, wringing her hands. "Why, that boy had an escort with him like a prince royal! The honest Dr. Mayer, such a refined, generous young man; and Tom, the negro, my best servant, and the truest! He saved me from an alligator once, and killed him with an iron bar. He was severely wounded by the ferocious reptile, yet he laughed at ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... like an avalanche. He swam alone in the deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living creature, except possibly the catfish that burrow in the mud, ever saw ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... Creole pride? That is the way with all of them. Show me any Creole, or any number of Creoles, in any sort of contest, and right down at the foundation of it all, I will find you this same preposterous, apathetic, fantastic, suicidal pride. It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator. That is why the Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive. See these De Grapions' haughty good manners to old Agricole; yet there wasn't a Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De Grapion lands but at ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... purchaser? Well, indeed might the shade of Apicius[A] lament that America and turtle were not discovered in his days. There were the guanas, too, in abundance, with their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these are excellent food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the alligator, and its diminutive European representative, the harmless lizard. Muscovy ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine apples abounded, oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains, love apples, Abbogada pears (better known by the name of subaltern's ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... the ventral surfaces also appear at the sides of the body, and along the posterior edges of the limbs. The tail is shortened and bifurcate. The most interesting portion, however, is the head. The snout is distinctly pinched in at the base, though broadened again distally. In the alligator the snout is broad and tapers but little. As in other representations of the crocodile, the lower jaw does not appear, and even in this dorsal view the artist seems to have deemed it necessary to show the row of teeth as if in side view, or as though they projected laterally ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen

... ocean. The blue sky sparkled over us every day; now and then we met a little solitary craft; countless water-fowl were scattered about on the surface of the stream; a school of mullet was usually jumping into the air; an alligator might sometimes be seen steadily swimming across the river, with only his nose and back exposed; and nearly always, either to the right or to the left, going north or going south, were seven pelicans, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... from his point of view. He says that he knows Paul better than he has ever known any one else. He even finds hair on Paul's chest. He can describe Paul, I believe, to the last mole. He knows his favourite colours, and whether he prefers artichokes to alligator pears. As for Christ, everybody professes to know Christ these days. Since the world has become distinctly un-Christian it has become comparatively easy to discuss Christ. He is regarded as an historical ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... hundred cubits long, beside being elaborately carved, and inlaid with bits of crystal, porcelain, mother-of-pearl, and jade, is richly enamelled and gilt. The stem, which rises ten or eleven feet from the bows, represents the nagha mustakha sapta, the seven-headed serpent or alligator. A phrasat, or elevated throne (also termed p'hra-the-nang), occupies the centre, supported by four pillars. The extraordinary beauty of the inlaying of shells, mother-of-pearl, crystal, and precious stones of every color, the splendor of the gilding, and the elegance of the costly kinkob ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... Honey of fine flavour is found in great abundance in the woods about the mouth of the river, and, for aught I know, in every part of the country. You perceive that I am constantly discovering new luxuries for my table. Not having been able to kill a crocodile (alligator), I have offered a reward for one, which I mean to eat, dressed in soup, fricassees, and steaks. Oh! how you long to partake of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... tall crane stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the stillness of the wilderness grew ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... gentleman took a boat, and rowed some distance up a creek. There we saw an alligator with a young one by its side. The young are very small, compared with the full-grown reptile. You can see from the picture, that the alligator is not handsome; but that is no reason why bullets should be lodged in its hide. I came ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his concealed hut; O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake; The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night, The humming-bird, the wild-turkey, the raccoon, the opossum; A Tennessee ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... "There! Now you see how much I know about Florida. From this distance. their fruits look to me exactly like alligator ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... where there were no car-windows to compromise his dignity. At the end of his run he stepped indifferently from the train along with the passengers, his street hat on his head and his conductor's cap in an alligator-skin bag, went directly into the station and changed his clothes. It was a matter of the utmost importance to him never to be seen in his blue trousers away from his train. He was usually cold and distant with men, but with all ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... The notion of meeting an alligator might have appealed to him, but not under these circumstances. He struck out like a madman as he struggled to get to a point where he could reach up and clasp the eager hands extended down to him, for he had heard the splash that announced the reptile's ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... ever see an alligator Come up to the air from the mud, Staring blindly under the full glare of noon? Have you seen the stabled horses at night Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern? Have you ever walked in darkness When an unknown door was open before you And you stood, it seemed, in the ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... small store, where you could get any kind of alligator or sea-bean combination that the mind could dream of. We had been in there before to look at the things. I found I was in luck, for the storekeeper told me that it was not often that people could get ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... him, even though he were engaged in business with the pirate, for no one knew what strange freak might at any time suggest itself to the soul of that most bloody roisterer; but as to following him, it was like walking into an alligator's jaws. He would take his passengers back to Kingston, but he could not sail upon any wild cruises, nor could he ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... despatched Mr. Baines, with Phibbs, Shewell, and Dawson, in the gig to bring up the sheep, the long-boat also going down the river with a crew from the vessel to bring up the kedge anchor and warp from Alligator Island, and also to assist in bringing up the sheep. In the evening there was a fine breeze from the east, and the thermometer fell to 65 degrees during the night. A few days before our arrival one of the kangaroo dogs had been seized by an alligator, ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... administration. We trust that editors throughout the State who are blessed with this world's goods to the extent of more than one pair of pants, will send one pair at least to John Turner, Mauston, Wis., by express. We are probably as poor as any editor, but we have sent him those alligator pants that have created such a sensation in years gone by. It is true they are a little bit fringy about the bottoms, and the knees are worn through, and concealment, like a worm in the bud, has gnawed the foundation all out of them, but in a little town like Mauston, such things will ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... "Seven-fifteen! Aren't you ever going to get up for breakfast?" and he was not a hero-scientist but a rather irritable and commonplace man who needed a shave. They had coffee, griddle-cakes, and sausages, and talked about Mrs. McGanum's atrocious alligator-hide belt. Night witchery and morning disillusion were alike forgotten in the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... strokes of the paddle swept pirogue and paddler into a strange and lonely world. The tall cypress-trees on each bank, draped with funeral moss, cast impenetrable shadows on the water; the deathlike silence was broken only by the occasional ominous hoot of an owl or the wheezy snort of an alligator; the clammy air breathed poison. But the stars overhead were bright, and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... America swarm with crocodiles, and these wage perpetual war with the jaguars. It is said, that when the jaguar surprises the alligator asleep on the hot sandbank, he attacks him in a vulnerable part under the tail, and often kills him, but let the crocodile only get his antagonist into the water, and the tables are turned, for the jaguar is held under water until ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... the trees, and running as if for his life! In front of him an object appeared, like a dead log, lying directly across the path. It could not be that, for it was in motion. It was a living animal—an alligator! ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... him two dromedaries. There is also one other Indian prince. With him is a giraffe. The giraffe drink every day one dozen best champagne to keep his coat good. I, the artist, have my bock, and my coat is not good. There is a guest with a young lion. There is a guest with an alligator. But especially there is a cat. He is fat. His name is Alexander. He belongs to an American woman. She is fat. She exhibits him to me. He is wrapped in a silk and fur creation like an opera cloak. Every day she exhibits him. It is 'Alexander this' and 'Alexander that', till I 'ate ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... as energetic as the Yankee, but not possessing his advantages of a seaboard. The Western States are the pioneers of civilization, and have a dauntless, less educated, and more turbulent character, approaching, as you draw towards the setting sun, very much to the half-horse, half-alligator, and paving the way for the arts and sciences of Europe with the ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... she's the daintiest of misses, With her pretty patent leathers or her alligator ties, With her eyes inviting glances and her lips inviting kisses, As she wanders by the ocean ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... kind, thet sets an' thinks fer weeks The bottom's out o' th' univarse coz their own gillpot leaks. I hed to cross bayous an' criks, (wal, it did beat all natur',) Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then alligator: Luck'ly the critters warn't sharp-sot; I guess't wuz overruled They'd done their mornin's marketin' an' gut their hunger cooled; Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' runaway's air viewed By them an' folks ez sent express to be their reg'lar ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... sea-shore to gather mosses, and never returned," replied the Signor. "It is supposed she slipped into the water and was drowned, or that she was seized by an alligator." ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... especially interested in the trial of Herbert, a California Congressman, who had shot dead at a hotel table a waiter who had not promptly served him, and he appeared to study old Major Lane, a "hunter from Kentucky," "half horse and half alligator," but gentlemanly in his manners, and partial to rye-whisky, ruffled shirts, gold-headed canes, and draw-poker. The Major had fought—so he said—under Jackson at New Orleans, under Houston at San ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... seemed crammed to the hinges with it, making an alluring bait. The long, black revolver of Shanklin's other days and nights lay there beside the bag asserting its large-caliber office of protection with a drowsy alligator look about it. ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... goose!" she said aloud. "There never was such a lovable idiot before. He's just like the alligator in the old rhyme, who wouldn't go along, and wouldn't keep still, but just kept bobbing ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... in that drawer my "Everglade" farm. Did you ever hear of the "Everglades"? I have an alligator ranch there. It is below the frost-line, also below the water-line. I will sell it ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette

... 'conditions' to do with this case?" I asked. "I got insured in the Wabash Mutual Internecine company against accident, and here I 've had an accident! Ivy poison is as severe an accident as can happen to any animal, except, perhaps, an alligator or a rhinoceros, and I think I 'm entitled to ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... we are bound; so let's have a good supper, and hurrah for the south! It's a bright prospect before us. A fair lady to be saved; possibly a fight with the niggers, and lion, elephant, rhinoceros, alligator, hippopotamus, and buffalo shooting by way of relaxation in the intervals of ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... crescent faded into the mist, caught a dark shadow in the air, and knew it was high land looming behind. And then the murk and driving rain lifted ever so little, and as it were only for that purpose; and we saw a misty bluff slope down into the sea, like the long head of a basking alligator poised upon the water, and stared into each other's eyes, and cried together, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... the boats were despatched up the river, but as the ebb-tide ran until after four o'clock it was late at night before they reached the cascade, having experienced some delay by running upon the sandbanks, which, above Alligator Island, are very numerous and form a narrow winding channel of not more than twelve feet deep; these banks are dry at low-water, and are composed of a yellow quartzose sand. At midnight, as soon as the launch and cutter were loaded, for it did not take more than half ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... versions of this lexicon derived 'baz' as a Stanford corruption of {bar}. However, Pete Samson (compiler of the {TMRC} lexicon) reports it was already current when he joined TMRC in 1958. He says "It came from "Pogo". Albert the Alligator, when vexed or outraged, would shout 'Bazz Fazz!' or 'Rowrbazzle!' The club layout was said to model the (mythical) New England counties of Rowrfolk and Bassex (Rowrbazzle ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... heard, he feels indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land. After a few months these things become old stories. They take their places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some pains to understand his visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats, chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the blooming of century plants, the fruits of chollas and the like. Baker pointed out some ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... I don't feel like going back through the swamp just yet. The flies are awful. And did you see those dreadful vultures on that dead tree? What a place! But the flowers are wonderful and I saw a real live alligator, even if it was a small one." She rubbed her scarf across her forehead. "Whew! It seems hotter here than it ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... adventures through which any member of the Club ever passed. The details of what happened, however, must be reserved for the next volume in this series, which will be published under the title: "THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB IN FLORIDA; Or, Laying the Ghost of Alligator Swamp." ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... the drama of the forests, I travelled twenty-three times through various parts of the vast northern woods, between Maine and Alaska, and covered thousands upon thousands of miles by canoe, pack-train, snowshoes, bateau, dog-train, buck-board, timber-raft, prairie-schooner, lumber-wagon, and "alligator." No one trip ever satisfied me, or afforded me the knowledge or the experience I sought, for traversing a single section of the forest was not unlike making one's way along a single street of a metropolis and then trying to persuade oneself that one knew all about the city's ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... of corroborees are sometimes huge sheets of bark fastened on to poles; these sheets of bark are painted in different designs and colours, something like Moorish embroideries. Sometimes there is a huge imitation of an alligator made of logs plastered over with earth and painted in stripes of different colours, a piece of wood cut open stuck in at one end as a gaping mouth. This alligator corroboree is generally indicative of a Boorah, or initiation ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... hand-car for a mile or two furnished transportation and then we found the railroad completely washed away by the flood above named. The General's quartermaster and myself secured a boat and with a crew of colored soldiers, we rowed some twelve miles to a place called Tigerville, on the Alligator bayou. Our route lay over the bed of the railroad, the track washed to one side of the cut, and a stream of water several feet deep on top of the bed. The road had been built through what seemed, most of the way, a primeval wilderness. The rank growth which skirted both sides ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman

... brac had been removed from the sideboard and tables. Some of the dresser drawers were half open, and pieces of tissue paper and ribbons were hanging out. On the armchair was a small alligator bag, containing toilet articles and a bunch of keys. The writing-desk had all its contents removed, and was open, showing scraps of torn-up letters. Lying on the floor, where it had been dropped, was a New York Central timetable. Between the desk and the bay-window stood a milliner's box, inside ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... I have a friend who was reared in Milwaukee and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, who tells me he would have argued the 'you-all' point with all comers for some years following his taking up his residence here, but he is at this time as ready as I to deny the allegation and 'chaw the alligator.' ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... position on a shelf near by, and all southern visitors greet the Alligator as a familiar friend, as all of us joyfully ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... and a steady arm, when—don't be afraid—a Catamaran caught me! If you haven't fainted (bless those pretty eyes of your's, my Emmy!) read on; and you will find that this alarming sort of animal is neither an albatross nor an alligator, but simply—a life-boat with a Triton in the stern. Yes, God's messenger of life to me and happiness to you, my girl, came in the shape of a kindly, chattering, blue-skinned, human creature, who dragged me out of the surf, landed me safely, and, I need not say, got paid with more than hearty ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... proportioned to our geographical pretensions. Our rivers, forests, mountains, cataracts, prairies, and inland seas were to find in him their antitype and voice. Shaggy he was to be, brown-fisted, careless of proprieties, unhampered by tradition, his Pegasus of the half-horse, half-alligator breed. By him at last the epos of the New World was to be fitly sung, the great tragi-comedy of democracy put upon the stage for all time. It was a cheap vision, for it cost no thought; and, like all judicious prophecy, it muffled itself from criticism in the loose drapery ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... in no mood for praying; and putting forth his slabs of arms like the paws of an alligator, he tried to grapple his foe by the throat. The cries of the mother now mingled with those of the child as he put out his little arms to shield his black protector. The ruffian, foiled in his purpose, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... foul of an alligator," said Poore, "all the creeks on Rook Island are full of them. Come along, and let us see ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... sixty-nine years old when he dictated his memoirs to a college graduate who had sense enough to retain the flavor. Black's history is badly botched, but reading him is like listening. "It took two coons and an alligator to spend the summer on that cotton plantation.... Cowpunchers were superstitious about owls. One who rode into my camp one night had killed a man somewhere and was on the dodge. He was lying down by the side of ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... journey he experienced fits of giddiness, and between whiles he speculated hazily as to the size of the blister the sun was raising on his back. For amusement he tried by looking ahead to decide whether the muddy object he saw lying on the water's edge was a log of wood or an alligator. Only very soon he had to give that up. No fun in it. Always alligator. One of them flopped into the river and all but capsized the canoe. But this excitement was over directly. Then in a long empty reach he was very grateful to a troop of monkeys who came right ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... whilst "gliding merrily down the Ohio" in a keel-boat, "navigated by eight or ten of those half-horse and half-alligator gentry commonly called Ohio boatmen," Judge Hall was lulled to sweet sleep, as the rowers were "tugging at the oar," timing their strokes to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... aged man, moving his flat, carpet-slippered feet a laborious inch; "alligator. Alligator not goin' take you 'cross lake. No use lookin'. 'Ow Peter goin' come when win' ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... Southerners and inclined to be friendly, but nothing in the stranger's attitude invited sociability. He was looking off upon the water in the direction from which they had come, and never turned his head in response to the loud shouts, when an alligator was seen lying upon the shore, or a big turtle was sunning itself on a log. He was a Northerner, they knew from his general make-up, and a friend of Tom Hardy, the captain said, when questioned with regard to him. This last was sufficient ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... consider them to possess very extraordinary virtues. Some of the negroes wear them to guard themselves against the bite of snakes or alligators; and on this occasion the saphie is commonly enclosed in a snake's or alligator's skin, and tied round the ankle. Others have recourse to them in time of war, to protect their persons against hostile weapons; but the common use to which these amulets are applied is to prevent or cure bodily diseases—to preserve ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... Drummond. They stopped at the Exchange Hotel and made known the fact. The polite manager, Eddie S. Riddick, Esq., soon saw Capt. Busby, and his gondola was chartered to carry the party to the Lake. Mr. Riddick made every preparation necessary for them, but one of the parties heard that an alligator was on exhibition near the hotel, and thinking that it was brought from the Lake, at once provided himself with a rifle and a large quantity of fixed ammunition. All were then ready and they left for the canal, where they ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold

... iguana, largest land lizard known to history, and alligators. Alligators are confined to the Western Hemisphere; crocodiles were supposed to be peculiar to the East, but lately a true crocodile (Crocodilus Americanus) has been identified in Florida. The alligator covers its eggs with a heap of rubbish for warmth and so leaves them; the African crocodile, on the contrary, buries them in the sand and then sits over them. The cardinal bird and the ocellated turkey must not be forgotten. Here may be found the leaf-cutting ants, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... uniting them in one vast network. I began to fear that the youngsters had, in their hurry to overtake Spider, slipt from aloft and fallen into the water, where they might have stuck in the mud, or been carried off by some voracious alligator watching for his prey. Going a little farther, I again shouted, when a cry came from among the branches above my head: I looked up, expecting to see the lads, but could not make them out. At last I distinctly heard Tom's voice, exclaiming, 'Here ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... the little shops,—so full of delightful, unnecessary things, candy and glace fruits, and orchids and exquisite Chinese embroideries, and postal cards, and theater tickets, and oranges, and paper-covered novels, and alligator pears! The very sight of these things aroused in her heart a longing that was as keen as pain. Oh, to push her way, somehow, into the world, to have a right to enjoy these things, to be a part of this brilliant, moving show, to play her part in ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... black pickaninny I was enumeratin', thinkin' it was a good joke. You know how these bush kids is runnin' around all over the country before a white man's brat could walk on its hind legs. 'Yes,' I says, 'if I was goin' alligator huntin' an' needed bait!' I come near catchin' the brat up by the feet an' beatin' its can off. I'm out o' ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... bad fox, or the skillery-scalery alligator, whom I have invited in. I ought not to have ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis

... to carry at the head of his troops when he went to battle; also a hat-band for the Prince of Egypt. This last was sent by a special courier with a large escort, and the Prince sent an exquisite shopping-bag of real alligator's skin to Drusilla in return. She was the envy of the ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... of the long bill-board to the other, was in manifest peril, should he miss the swinging trapeze at the finish of his flight, of landing within the wide open jaws of an enormous hippopotamus—designated in the picture as, "The Behemoth of Holy Writ." An alligator, sitting upright, and bearing the legend that he was one of the "Sacred Crocodiles of the Nile, to which the Indian Mothers Throw Their Babes," was leering with a hopeful smile at the proximity of a be-spangled lady equestrian, balanced on the tip of one ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... paper (6) the writer described the general features in the development of the American Alligator; and in other papers special features were ...
— Development of the Digestive Canal of the American Alligator • Albert M. Reese

... declared Mr. Alcando. "The alligator will have him before you reach him. Oh, that I was a good swimmer, or that ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... Effingham; but Paul Blunt-Powis- Effingham finished the job. As for Mr. Steadfast Dodge, sir, I say nothing, unless it be to add that he was nowhere near me in that transaction; and if any man felt like an alligator in Lent, on that occasion, it was ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his alligator-skin grip, and took out a Bible and a new self-cocking weepon that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one of the bull-dog variety, and had the laugh of a ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... such forms as lesarde, lezard, lagarto, lacerto, is from the Latin lacertus, a lizard; while closely related is the word alligator by way of lagarto, aligarto, to alligator. The prefix may have arisen as a corruption of an article and a noun, as in the modern Spanish ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... and enjoyed life. For them it was a picnic. But soon their hosts began to wear long faces; the strangers had enormous appetites, and the plantains and the bread-fruit vanished before their rapacity; the alligator-pear trees, whose fruit sent to Apia might sell for good money, were stripped bare. Ruin stared them in the face. And then they found that the strangers were working very slowly. Had they received a ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... he was drawing the long-bow, as the Yankees call it, at a prodigious rate. He was telling how, once upon a time, he had caught a young alligator; how he had tamed it and fed it till it grew a monster twenty feet long; how he used to saddle it and bridle it, and ride through the streets of Tulcora on its back—men, women, and children screaming and flying in all directions; how, armed only with his good sabre, ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... cosmopolitan sort of arboreal growth. At its full strength of hard, solid, time-defying wooded body on the edge of some almost inaccessible swamp of the South, where its spread-out roots and ridgy branches earn for it another common name as the "alligator tree," it is in a park or along a private driveway at the North quite the acme of refined tree elegance, all the summer and fall. It takes on a rather narrow, pyramidal head, broadening as it ages, but never betraying kin with its fellow of the swamp, save perhaps when winter has bared its peculiar ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... the others, for the creature was a terrible one. It had the body of a bear, but the feet and legs were those of an alligator, while the tail trailed out behind like a snake, and the head had a long snout, not unlike the trunk of an elephant. The creature was about ten feet long and five feet ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... it stands, this Great Aquarium is wonderful—wonderful exceedingly. There is a still greater one at Brighton, holding greater wonders—a baby alligator amongst them—and we are very glad to hear that one is to be ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... can also be had all the year round. In addition to oranges and limes, which grow to perfection in this country, many fruits peculiar to tropical and semi-tropical climates grow well and flourish in these Islands. Among the more important is the Avocado Pear (Persea Gratissima), commonly called the Alligator Pear. This tree grows well and bears fruit, of splendid quality, in from 3 to 5 years from seed. The fruit is much esteemed by all classes. A small quantity of the fruit is shipped to California; ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs

... his foot. It was certainly a hard, impenetrable body, and not the soft substance of which all the marine inhabitants that he had heard of were made, such as whales, sharks, walruses, and the like. If anything, it more resembled a tortoise or an alligator. A hollow sound was emitted when it was struck, and it appeared to be made ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... Rough alligator finished photograph mounts will not receive a good impression from a die. If a carbon paper is placed on the mounts before making the impression, a good clear imprint will be ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... him a little better after that, for he did the thing with great skill. When I had got so far, nothing could surprise me, and I didn't turn a hair when I found that I was expected to eat pears cut up with salad oil. But they were alligator pears, and when you tasted them, it appeared that they had nothing whatever to do with the fruit kingdom. Best of all, I liked the watermelon which came at the end, cut in little balls, looking like strawberry water ice, ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... have known him But for the colored folk That here obtain And ne'er in vain That wizard's art invoke; For when the Eye that's Evil Would him and his'n damn, The negro's grief gets quick relief Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam. With the caul of an alligator, The plume of an unborn loon, And the poison wrung From a serpent's tongue By the light of a ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... both of us, George, that we can't sit there under the trees and eat out of a basket and have spiders and ants in things and not mind it. Here we are in the land of Smithfield hams and spoon-bread and we ate canned lobster for lunch, and alligator pear salad." ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... trapped only six miles off, and its beautiful feline body had not had time to stiffen. Even when dead, with its fierce head and cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered for a rhinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator?) and five dollars for a boa-constrictor or python. Lately, at five in the morning, a black tiger (panther?) came down the principal street of Malacca, tore a Chinamen in pieces, and then, scared by a posse of police in pursuit, jumped through a window into a house. Every door in the city ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... proved readily adaptable to the wild life about her, no less did Philip. At night he smoked comfortably by his camp fire, unwound the hullabaloo upon request or lent it to Sho-caw. He rode hard and fearlessly with the warriors, hunted bear and alligator, acquired uncommon facility in the making of sof-ka, the tribal stew, and helped in the tanning of pelts and the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... surface of rock and slid downhill like a human toboggan until I fetched up against a dead log. I discovered it to be a dead log after a confused interval during which I vaguely believed myself to have been swallowed by an alligator. While the alligator illusion endured I must have lain comatose and immovable. Indeed, when my senses began to come back I was still quite inert. I experienced that curious tranquillity which is said to visit ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... and couldn't tell where to find out. It was long after, that little Billie got the answer to his childish, but really important question. The Alligator may use his tail as a club, the Horse, his tail as a fly-flapper, the Porcupine his tail as a spiked war-club, the 'Possum his as a hooked hanger, the Fox his as a muffler, the Fish his as a paddle; but the Gray Squirrel's tail is a parachute, ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... Sipo Tahib, as he called him, by jumping on his back and bending his forepaws over his neck. (Peter Parley's History, which Jim read at school, contained a picture of the naturalist Chatterton thus navigating an alligator, and Jim couldn't see why a tiger should not be handled the same way. He preferred, however, that some other boy should be the one ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... seven sharp turns in that underwater causeway, and the edges of each turn were slippery slopes, up which an alligator certainly could climb, but that afforded not the least chance to a man whose foot once stepped too far and slid. And not only were there unexpected turns at different intervals, but there were gaps in the causeway of ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... IN DIXIE; or, The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp. Startling experiences awaited the comrades when they visited the Southland. But their knowledge of woodcraft enabled ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... have become domesticated. The tall mango-tree, with rich, glossy leaves, the branches bending under the weight of its delicious fruit, is seen growing everywhere, though it is not a native of these islands. Among other fruit-trees we observe the feathery tamarind, orange, lime, alligator-pear, citron-fig, date, and rose apple. Of all the flowering trees, the most conspicuous and attractive is one which bears a cloud of brilliant scarlet blossoms, each cluster ball-shaped and as large as a Florida orange. Some of the thoroughfares are lined by pretty, low-built cottages, standing ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... Hood, in whose flag-ship I served as lieutenant, from 1812 to 1815, was unceasing. There was a boyish hilarity about this great officer, which made it equally delightful to serve officially under him, and to enjoy his friendly companionship. An alligator-hunt, a sport in which the Malays take great delight, was shared in by the Admiral, who made the place ring with his exclamation of boyish delight. Scarcely had we returned from the alligator-hunt, near Trincomalee, when Sir Samuel applied himself to the collector of the district, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... was a silver vase with three yellow tulips in it, and Cecil, wandering about, came upon a double photograph frame, back of the vase, that made her gasp. She picked it up and stared at it. Between the alligator edgings, facing each other obliquely, but with the greatest amity, were Mr. Thomas Denby in the fashion of ten years before, very handsome, very well-groomed, with the startled expression which any definite withdrawal from his potational pursuits ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... nitro. At night I am wakened as of yore, but the agonizing, crushing pains do not come every night. ... I eat prunes and bran biscuit and coffee for breakfast; a bit of cooked fruit (and that in this land of oranges and alligator pears and ripe raspberries!), chicken and green peas, and bran biscuit and tea for lunch; a couple of green vegetables and bran biscuit and a small black, for dinner. And all this I write with a supreme sense of virtue, which Simon Stylites or St. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... grandson, who, he says, is all Hastings, with a very little Tracy and not a grain of German in him, 'but very nice, very nice; and you are his grandmother, too, and I am his grandfather, whom he once called an old crazy man because I wouldn't let him play in my room with a little alligator which his Aunt Dolly ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... They were grouped about four lunch baskets. One of the children, a little boy, held a black greyhound by a rope around its neck. Trina wore a blue cloth skirt, a striped shirt waist, and a white sailor; about her round waist was a belt of imitation alligator skin. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... of natives, sitting at a feast of baked alligator tail, at the mouth of the Amaceri, near the dirty, straggling riverine town of Llano, rose in astonishment as they saw issuing from the clayey, wallowing Guamoco trail a staggering band of travelers, among them two foreigners, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... carefully shading it from the house windows, over the walk which led to the front door and the piazza. James followed him. "Well," said Aaron, "there's been somebody here, but, with snow like this, it might have been a monkey or a rhinoceros or an alligator. You can't make nothin' of them tracks. But they do go out to the road, and turn ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... he did not fancy the man—not that he was on the surface other than a rough woods rover, with a laugh like the roar of a bull alligator, and a heartiness that seemed genuine enough; but something about his eyes caused the ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... whispered, "and yees may cotch a fish that didn't nibble at yer bait. Whisht! but do ye saa him? But isn't he a strappin' fellow, to be sure—a raal shark ten foot long, with claws like an alligator!" ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... know all about it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER GRANVILLE has told the Times how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore you to tell me how you have managed to live for so many years when all your contemporaries ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... the trip for various reasons. "No, maybe not, Koku. Your skin is pretty tough. But I understand there are deep pools of water in the land where we are going, and in them lives a fish that has a hide like an alligator and a jaw like a shark. If you fall in it's ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... look very hopeful, Louis, if the Fatime were only doing her best to overhaul us in a chase; but she is like an alligator sunning himself on the water, she don't move ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... reptiles known to me, only two utter vocal sounds,—the alligator and the elephant tortoise. The former roars ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... now under water stabbing his alligator, and took no notice of the indignant departure of the ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... of anything more destructive of the whole theoretic faculty, not to say of the Christian character and human intellect,[31] than those accursed sports in which man makes of himself cat, tiger, leopard, and alligator in one; and gathers into one continuance of cruelty, for his amusement, all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other for ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... was in the day of the redskins. There is even a legend about Snow Bird, the only daughter of Bald Eagle and White Rock, his wife. Inside the cavern, if you look carefully, there is to be seen the outline of the lovely face of Snow Bird on the great stone wall. There are a Wigwam, and an Iceberg, an Alligator, and the Golden Horseshoe and Balcony of the Metropolitan, all ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... no lions nor large beasts of prey in the island; it has been suggested that these tracks may have been footprints of an alligator.] ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... Palm A "Seringueiro" Tapping a Rubber Tree Smoking the Rubber-Milk Forest Interior A Fig-Tree Completely Overgrown with Orchids Chico, The Monkey Turtle Eggs on the Sand-Bank The Pirarucu The Last Resting-Place of the Rubber-Workers "Seringueiros" Joao Floresta Creek Lake Innocence Alligator from Lake Innocence Another Alligator from Lake Innocence Rubber-Workers' Home near Lake Innocence Harpooning a Large Sting-Ray Shooting Fish on Lake Innocence The Pirarucu Amazonian Game-Fish The Track of the Anaconda—The Sucuruju The Paca Rubber-Worker ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... Fannies of our island—though this I say with reluctance—are not visibly improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Crocodiles, you will say, are stationary. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change,—that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is that the crocodile does not live fast—he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood among naturalists that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... scale, And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 305 The iron crags, or within heaps of dust To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs Had crushed the iron crags; and over these The jagged alligator, and the might Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 310 Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, And weed-overgrown continents of earth, Increased and multiplied like summer worms On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe Wrapped ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... cross-section of a piece of the cloth out of which our 'Stopablitey' trench-coat is manufactured. It shows the strata of the material, consisting of alternate layers of old motor tyres and reinforced concrete—the whole covered with alligator skin and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... the liquid-ambar, the laurel, the myrtle, and the broad glistening leaves of the evergreen magnolia. Here was the haunt of bears, wild-cats, lynxes, cougars, and the numberless deer of which they made their prey. In the sedges and the mud the alligator stretched his brutish length; turtles with outstretched necks basked on half-sunken logs; the rattlesnake sunned himself on the sandy bank, and the yet more dangerous moccason lurked under the water-lilies in inlets and ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Zulus, but for all that you do not sympathize with them. No doubt you know the Zulu way of cooking tomatoes and the Zulu prayer before blowing one's nose; but for all that you don't understand them as well as I do, who don't know an assegai from an alligator. You are more learned, Chadd, but I am more Zulu. Why is it that the jolly old barbarians of this earth are always championed by people who are their antithesis? Why is it? You are sagacious, you are benevolent, you are well informed, but, Chadd, you are not ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... claws unsheathed, until a young fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than a wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near enough to spring their man-trap on the curious experimenter. At Wood-End there were some Indians, ill-conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... said to have colonised Socotra; his tower on the border of Darkness. Alexander III., Pope. Alexander IV., Pope. Alexandria, trade from India to. Alhinde, Alfinde, Alinde, Al-hint. 'Ali and Aliites. Alidada. Alihaiya, Kublai's general. Alinak. Alligator, in Carajan, mode of killing; eaten; prophecy of Bhartpur about. Almalik. Almanacs, Chinese (Tacuin). Almonds. Aloes, Socotrine. —— wood, see Lign-aloes. Alor, war cry. Al-Ramni, Al-Ramin, see Sumatra. Altai (Altay) Mountains, the Khan's burial-place; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... they espied the largest and strangest lizard they ever saw. It was nearly two feet long, with a perfectly round body, a broad, flat head, short legs and a short, blunt tail. It was a chunky little animal, all covered with a rough skin like an alligator and dotted with square warts. It seemed very tame and followed Mary into the tent where she made a warm nest for it in the corner near her bunk. It was very fond of being petted and would lie and rub its head against Mary's hand. When Father returned at night he ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster

... did the same way at school purty much. It got so for a-while at one school thet not a child in school could be hired to put his hand in the wood-box, not knowin' ef any piece o' bark or old wood in it would turn out to be a young alligator or toad-frog thawin' out. Teacher hisself picked up a chip, reckless, one day, an' it hopped up, and knocked off his spectacles. Of cose it wasn't no chip. Hopper-toad frogs an' wood-bark chips, why, they favors consider'ble—lay ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... he began advances to make it my property. For the full demijohn he would have parted with the tiki that had been his grandfather's, but I had no fancy for it. One can buy in Paris purses of human skin for not much more than one of alligator hide. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... better nor more welcome than he does now, God bless the long-armed, long-legged, fightin', gen'rous, kind-hearted cuss! An' thar's Paul, too, lookin' fur all the world like a scholar, crammed full o' book l'arnin', 'stead o' the ring-tailed forest runner, half hoss, half alligator, that he is, though he's got the book l'arnin' an' is one o' the greatest scholars the world ever seed! An' that's Tom Ross, with his mouth openin' ez ef he wuz 'bout to speak a word, though he'll conclude, likely, that he oughtn't, an' all three o' 'em are pow'ful glad to see us comin' in our ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler









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