The alligator-Florida’s most feared, maligned animal. From the time European settlers first stepped onto Florida soil, the alligator has been a target of dread and revulsion-and the hunter’s gun.

Collected here are true (and tongue-in-cheek) accounts of alligators and the people who have hunted them, been attacked by them, and tried to save them from extinction. Journey through the Everglades with 1800s Seminoles, experts at stalking and killing gators. Go along with a Northern girl as she shoots my first alligator in my glove and veil. And learn how modern alligator hunters go about their business, which hasn’t changed much in the last hundred years or so.

If you like tall tales, you’ll love Henry, the alligator-turned-head-waiter who becomes despondent when a pretty New York girl spurns his lovesick advances. Or Algy, the gator who survives a broiling in a furnace by his owners, who happen to think he’s already dead and won’t mind the heat. Or Two-Toed Tom, who may or may not have even existed, but who was blamed for everything from eating mules to terrorizing women and children.