LONGEVITY QUESTIONED. 43 



observable in cats, hares, and conies. And so the deer that 

 endure th the womb but eight months, and is complete at 

 six years, from the course of nature we cannot expect to 

 live a hundred years, nor in any proportional allowance to 

 much more than thirty. 



" Moreover, the state and declination of all animals are 

 proportionally set out by nature ; and naturally proceeding, 

 admit of inference from each other. When long life is 

 natural, the marks of age are late ; and where they appear, 

 the journey unto death cannot be long. Now the age of 

 deer is best conjectured by view of the horns and teeth. 

 From the horns there is a particular and annual account 

 unto six years, they arising first plain, and so successively 

 branching; after which the judgment of their years by 

 particular marks becomes uncertain : but when they grow 

 old, they grow less branched, and first do lose their pro- 

 pugnacula or brow antlers; which Aristotle says the 

 youngest use in fight, and the old, as needless, have them 

 not at all. The same may be also collected from the loss of 

 their teeth, whereof in old age they have few, or none 

 before, in either jaw. Now these are infallible marks of 

 age ; and when they appear we must confess a declination, 

 which notwithstanding will happen, as we are informed, 

 between twenty and thirty." 



I myself may add, that the great incitement and ex- 

 haustion during the rutting season, as well as the effort 

 nature makes in renewing the horns annually, is an 

 argument against longevity ; and, notwithstanding the 

 extreme respect I bear to marvellous traditions (always, I 

 think, better attested in proportion as they are marvellous), 

 I judge it incumbent on me to say, that the accounts I have 

 received from park-keepers in England, where there are red 

 deer, entirely contradict their supposed longevity. 



The longest lived deer they remember in Richmond Park 

 was the Naphill stag, turned out there by command of his 

 majesty George the Third. Every care was taken of him, 

 but he lived no longer than twenty years ; and the present 

 keeper, who communicated this information to me, asserted, 

 at the same time, that the red deer in that park rarely 

 exceed the age of eighteen years, and that their horns 



