342 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



boration of the same views, for their parts soon be- 

 coming rigid and dry, old age comes rapidly upon 

 them ; few of them in their adult state living more 

 than a few days or weeks, and some not many 

 hours. 



" Fishes," again, to use the words of Smellie, 

 " whose bones are more cartilaginous than those of 

 men and quadrupeds, are long of acquiring their 

 utmost growth, and many of them live to great ages. 

 Gesner gives an instance of a carp in Germany, 

 which he knew to be one hundred years old. Buffon 

 informs us that, in Count Maurepa's ponds he had 

 seen carps of one hundred and fifty years of age, 

 and that the fact was attested in the most satisfactory 

 manner. He even mentions one which he sup- 

 posed to be two hundred years old*. The element 

 in which fishes live is more uniform, and less subject 

 to accidental changes than the air of our atmosphere. 

 Their bones, which are more of a cartilaginous 

 nature than those of land animals, admit of indefinite 

 extension; of course, their bodies, instead of suffer- 

 ing the rigidity of age at an early period, which is 

 the natural cause of death, continue to grow much 

 longer than those of most land animals f." 



It is a very prevalent notion that in what is termed 

 and supposed to be a state of nature, diseases 

 (assumed to be wholly caused by artificial living) do 

 not occur ; and it is accordingly maintained that 

 wild animals, from living in this state of nature, are 

 exempted from disease J. But in opposition to this 

 doctrine many strong facts might be adduced. We 

 lately caught a mouse, which was in the last stage 

 of malignant erysipelas, which carried it off in a few 



* De Piscibus, p. 312. f PM- of Nat. Hist. ii. 418, 8vo edit. 

 | See Abernethy, Physiol. Lectures, and Bush's Medical 

 Observations. 



