CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE AGES OP BIRDS. 



Age Attainable by Birds — By Gannets — Traditions at the Bass 

 Rock — A Gannet supposed to have Reached the Age of Eighty. 



Age Attainable by Birds. — The age attainable by birds 

 and animals is a topic which must have a chapter to 

 itself. I do not mean the average duration of their lives, 

 so much as their possible duration under favourable circum- 

 stances. It is a topic on which several learned men have 

 descanted, from the great Lord Bacon* downwards, but 

 the difficulty in getting precise facts — facts, that is, which 

 can be thoroughly relied upon — seems to be insurmount- 

 able. The testimony of unimpeachablef witnesses may 

 vouch for a bird having attained the age of forty or even 

 sixty years, but after that errors and uncertainties creep in. 

 One reason why we judge birds capable of living a long 

 time, is because it is almost a necessity that it should be so, 



* " Longevitas et Brevitas Vita} in Animal ib its. ^^ Twenty-one species are 

 cited by Lord Bacon, who emphasises the mixed motions of birds as 

 conducive to longevity. 



t It is uncommonly liard to be positive about any bird's age after, say, 

 sixty is passed. One of the very few, to my mind, unquestionable 

 instances of a bird surviving in captivity through seventy-four years, is 

 that of Mr. E. Meade-Waldo's Eaglo-Owl {Bubo ignavus), which lived in 

 different cages during that period, and reared no less than ninety-five 

 young ones, of wliich the last brood, still living, were hatciiod in 1899 

 (c/."Ibi3," 1899, p. 30). 



FF 



