CARGO OF ALLIGATORS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 224, 15 June 1908, Page 8

CARGO OF ALLIGATORS.

HOW THEY WERE FED. , Twenty-one live alligators, the largest consignment ever received in arrived at Tilbury Docks oh April 28 in the steamship Minnetonka. They are destined to occupy a tank in Bostock's animal, arena at the Earl's Court Exhibition. Some of them were fifteen or sixteen feet in length, with torriblo jaws, and tails so tremendously Btrong that a blow from one would break a man's leg. They were in a perfectly wild state, having but three weeks before been lassoed in a Florida; swamp. ■ In charge of an experienced keeper, they travelled in long,' coffin-shaped wooden cases, 7cry strongly constructed, and each capable of containing one alligator. During their | journey, which lasted fourteen days,. the alligators had hut two meals—ono in New York and another just before they arrived ot Tilbury. Through a slit in the end of the boxes their keeper rapped each alligator Bpcn the back-of its horny head with a nhort stick. The reptiles opened wide their jaws with a hiss of anger, whereupon the keeper deftly threw into their mouths largo pieces of raw meat and many live mice. These formed , tho sole articles of the alligators' diet. At each meal each alligator ate between twenty and thirty pounds of meat and between two and three dozen live mice. "Tho largest of tho alligators are fully grown, and about fifty years of age," said their keeper. "In a wild state they live to the' ago of 100 and sometimes 150 years. One of them died during tho sea voyage, probably from cold."