54 CENTENARIAN FISH. 



ing those symptoms of old age, they died. According 

 to the above computation, nine or ten years seems to be 

 the allotted term of a troutf s existence, a period which 

 savours much more of the truth, than many of the wild 

 legends we have been told concerning the fabulous ages 

 to which fish have been said to attain. 



That trout continue to increase ' in magnitude up to 

 a certain reasonable age, then remain stationary for a 

 few years more, and finally decline and exhibit the 

 ordinary indications of old age and degenerated powers 

 like other creatures, is extremely probable ; it bears at 

 least strong prima facie evidence of truth about it. And 

 we must attach just as much credit as it is worth, to the 

 story of the venerable piscine patriarchs in the royal 

 ponds at Marli in France, which are said to have lived 

 since the time of Francis I. ; as well as to the biography 

 of the celebrated pike, which is said to have enjoyed 

 himself for 26*7 years, and was alive and kicking at the 

 end of that time in a pond in Swabia, into which he was 

 put by the Emperor Frederick II., in the year 1230, with 

 a brass collar around his neck, recording the date and 

 the circumstances under which he was distinguished by 

 the imperial favour ! As his decease has never been re- 

 gistered, this antiquated fish may yet be alive and 

 merry, and resting his patriarchal cranium, upon which 

 more than six centuries have shed their accumulated 

 snows, in jolly old age, beneath the shade of some ver- 

 dant waterlily, for anything I know to the contrary. 

 Compared with such specimens of longevity as these, Old 

 Parr himself was a mere baby. 



