302 LONGEVITY OP ANIMALS. 



ers in one year should not live above six or seven. But na- 

 ture knows none of our rules. She accommodates her con- 

 duct, not to our shallow and often presumptuous conclusions, 

 but to the preservation of species, and to the support and gen- 

 eral balance of the great system of animated beings. Ravens, 

 though capable of providing for themselves in less than a year, 

 sometimes have their lives protracted more than a century. 

 The Count de Buffon informs us, that, in several places in 

 France, ravens have been known to arrive at this extraordi- 

 nary age, and that at all times, and in all countries, they have 

 been esteemed birds of great longevity. 



" Eagles," says Mr. Pennant, " are remarkable for their 

 longevity, and for their power of sustaining a long abstinence 

 from food. A golden eagle, which has now been nine years 

 in possession of Owen Holland, Esq. of Conway, lived thirty- 

 two years with the gentleman who made him a present of it ; 

 but what its age was when the latter received it from Ireland 

 is unknown. The same bird also furnishes a proof of the 

 truth of the other remark, having once, through the neglect of 

 servants, endured hunger for twenty-one days without any sus- 

 tenance whatsoever." The pelican that was kept at Mechlin 

 in Brabant during the reign of the Emperor Maximilian, was 

 believed to be eighty years of age. " What is reported of 

 the age of eagles and ravens," says Mr. Willoughby, " although 

 it exceeds all belief, yet doth it evince that those birds are 

 very long-lived. Pigeons have been known to live from twenty 

 to twenty-two years. Even the smaller birds live very long in 

 proportion to the time of their growth and the size of their 

 bodies. Linnets, goldfinches, &,c., often live in cages fifteen, 

 twenty, and even twenty-three years." 



Fishes, whose bones are more cartilaginous than those of 

 men and quadrupeds, are long in acquiring their utmost 

 growth, and many of them live to great ages. Gesnei gives 

 an instance of a carp in Germany which he knew to be one 

 hundred years old. Buffon informs us, that, in the Count 

 Maurepas' ponds, he had seen carps of one hundred and fifty 

 years of age, and that the fact was attested in the most satis- 

 factory manner. He even mentions one which he supposed 

 to be two hundred years old. Two methods have been devised 

 for ascertaining the age of fishes, namely, by the circles of 

 the scales, and by a transverse section of the back-bone. 

 When a scale of a fish is examined by a microscope, it is 

 found to consist of a number of circles, one within another, 

 resembling, in some measure, those rings that appear on the 



