LONGEVITY. 347 



and other small birds, have been known to live from 

 fifteen to twenty-three years *. 



Willughby says, " We have been assured by a 

 friend of ours, a person of very good credit, that his 

 father kept a goose, known to be fourscore years of 

 age, and as yet sound and lusty, and like enough to 

 have lived many years longer, had he not been 

 forced to kill her for mischievousness, worrying and 

 destroying the young geese and goslins f." In 

 another part of his valuable work, this writer 

 tells us, " that he has been assured by credible 

 persons, that a goose will live a hundred years 

 and more J." 



It has been supposed that the pelican derives its 

 great longevity from the peculiar texture of its 

 bones, which are thin, almost transparent, and ex- 

 ceedingly light. Even in captivity it has been ob- 

 served to be more tenacious of life than most other 

 birds. " Of a great number of pelicans kept in the 

 menagerie at Versailles, none died in the space of 

 twelve years ; yet during that time some of almost 

 every other species of animals died ." 



It was reported, as Aldrovand has stated, by per- 

 sons worthy of credit, that a pelican, eighty years of 

 age (octogenariam), was kept by the Emperor 

 Maximilian, and was held as a sort of auspicator in 

 his camp. It was supposed to have been hatched 

 in the time of Philip, the emperor's father. It was 

 afterwards kept for a long time at the court of the 

 empress, after it was no longer able, through old 

 age, to use its wings, the expense of keeping it being 

 four crowns a day||. Turner mentions one which 



* Willughby, Ornith. 



f Ornkholog. p. 14. J Ibid. p. 256. 



Mem. de PAcad. des Sciences, p. 191. 



|| Ornithologia, xix. 22. 



