DURATION OF LIFE IN THE HORSE. 643 



least that he is healthy, if he be slow in attaining his maturity. One 

 that only ceases to grow at six or seven years of age will, barring 

 particular accidents, be of good service for twenty years or more, and 

 can even live forty years and longer. On the contrary, one which 

 reaches full growth in four years, will live at most only twenty or 

 twenty-five. Heavy and lymphatic horses, which attain their full 

 growth in still less time, are also shorter lived, and are already old at 

 the age of six or seven years. 



" Instances of an age of thirty or forty years would not be so rare 

 among these animals if the brutality of men did not shorten their 

 lives, if they were less abused, and if they were better cared for. 

 Commonly, one has not the least regard for a horse after he has 

 attained a certain age ; one endeavors to dispose of him in order to 

 save the expense of his keep ; and his ordinary recompense, after 

 having rendered the best services for a fair length of time, is to be 

 worked to a cart and reserved for the most severe labor, or to be sent 

 to the knacker." 



This passage, written in Germany, is equally applicable in France : 

 it proves that men act everywhere the same towards the animals, 

 auxiliaries in their work. 



Among the principal causes which modify the longevity we will 

 cite the slowness of the development, the size, the service, and the 

 care. 



We believe that there are precocious individuals and not precocious 

 races. Nevertheless, agreeing with the opinion of some authors, we 

 will admit that certain races live longer, and that the duration of life 

 is in proportion to the time which the animal requires to reach his 

 maturity, although until the present no one has furnished proof of it. 



However it may be, H. Bouley has endeavored to demonstrate the 

 foundation of this opinion. " There are," says he, " tardy races and 

 precocious races. In the latter, the precocity results from the com- 

 bined action of heredity and of the alimentary regimen, so that the 

 organic formation is effected in a hurried manner, so to speak, in the 

 subjects which compose them, which causes an earlier maturity ; 

 whence it follows that the duration of the first period is shortened, and, 

 as a fatal consequence, that of their life, for the more rapid processes 

 of growth impressed upon their organism have no other effect, in view 

 of the industry which produces them, than to hasten the moment of 

 their death." ^ 



> See Nouveau Dictionnaire pratique de medeciue, de chirurgieet d'hygiene veterinaires, 

 t. i.,,annee 1856, art. "Ages," p. 189. 



