420 APPENDIX 



The " crow " is, of course, the raven, *ro/oa corvus. On 

 the question of the great duration of the stag's life, the 

 longa et cervina senectus of Juvenal (Satire, xiv., 251), 

 the two chief prose authorities of antiquity differ. Aristotle 

 denies that the stag is remarkable for its longevity. Pliny, 

 on the other hand (Natural History, viii., 32), says that 

 it is "well known" that he lives to a great age, and 

 gives, as an instance of it, that several stags, round whose 

 necks Alexander the Great had hung collars of gold, were 

 killed, a hundred years later, still wearing the collars, over 

 which the flesh and skin had grown so much that they 

 were almost encased in them (adoperti jam cute in magna 

 obesitate). 



As regards the still greater longevity of the raven, 

 Hesiod's statement seems to have been taken for granted 

 both by later poets and prose writers. Cf. Juvenal, who says 

 of Nestor's long life (Satire, x., 246), exemplum vita fuit a 

 cornice secundce. The life of a raven in captivity is so un- 

 natural in itself and is exposed to so many special dangers, 

 that it cannot be said to prove much either way. I may 

 mention, however, that of my own three pet ravens, while 

 one was killed by an accident, the other two appeared to 

 die a perfectly natural death, one at seventeen, the other 

 at about twenty-two years of age. The only tame raven 

 of which I have been able to discover indubitable proof 

 that it lived beyond the usual term of human life, is that 

 described in pages 163-166; the friend and companion, 

 first, of a porcupine, and then of a seagull. So distin- 

 guished and accurate an ornithologist as Mr J. H. Gurney 



