|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
Alligator Tears
| Article
# : |
18386 |
|
|
Section : |
CULTURE
|
| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1999 |
242 Words |
| Author
: |
Peggy Robbins
Peggy Robbins, a Tennessee native, is a free-lance writer
living in Gulfport, Mississippi. Over the past three decades,
she has written extensively about American heritage and
military history. |
In his Travels in America, Thomas Ashe provided a most unusual account of alligator behavior: "I was started up by the most lamentable cries that ever assailed the human ear. ... They issued from so many directions, and expressed such a variety and number of persons afflicted with the deepest grief, that our reason and judgment were dissipated in wild conjecture. ... At times the cries sank into the feeble plaints of expiring infancy, and again gradually rose into the full and melancholy swell of an adult tortured by fiends destitute of mercy and humanity. The lamentations, turn by turn, touched every string capable to vibrate excess of misery, and denoted the variety of sorrow incident to individuals from the loss of health, friends, fortune, and relatives. Above all, they denoted calamity in the act of supplicating relief in the strong language of sobs, sighs, and tears, and moans of inexpressible anguish and length. ... This violent outcry was followed by plunges in the water and a rustling among the trees, which at length explained the objects of our dismay and apprehension. They were a host of alligators."
Actually the alligator's voice is a low-pitched roar. And although they do shed tears, the creatures are in fact ridding their bodies of excess salt through special glands in their head. ----P.R.
... (1589 of 1367 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
