GROWTH, DECAY, AND DEATH 743 



horses live long enough for their arteries to become rigid. The 

 mean age at death of thoroughbred stallions is slightly under 

 twenty years. 



Doubtless the work performed by horses is the chief cause 

 of their rapid decay, for their legs always wear out before their 

 bodies. But apart from this, changes in their teeth, such 

 as the wearing away of the molars, appear to prevent many of 

 them from reaching a ripe old age. Instances are on record 

 of horses attaining the age of thirty-five, forty-five, fifty, and one 

 animal is known to have lived to sixty-three years of age.* 

 Blaine J appears to have gone very carefully into the question 

 of old age in equines, and he drew the following comparison, which 

 is doubtless very close to the truth : ' The first five years of a 

 horse may be considered as equivalent to the first twenty years 

 of a man. Thus, a horse of five years may be comparatively 

 considered as old as a man of twenty ; a horse of ten years as 

 a man of forty ; a horse of fifteen as a man of fifty ; a horse of 

 twenty as a man of sixty ; of twenty-five as a man of seventy ; of 

 thirty as a man of eighty ; and of thirty-five as a man of ninety.' 



The duration of life in the various domesticated animals is 

 given by Crisp J as follows : 



It is believed these observations were made under the favour- 

 able conditions of animals in captivity (Zoological Gardens), 

 well fed and looked after, and the figures are in consequence high. 

 Bracy Clark § regarded the horse as not mature until the eighth 



* Bracy Clark, in his ' Podophthora,' quoting from the Liverpool 

 Advertiser, said there was a cart-horse on the canal near Warrington 

 sixty-three years of age. Clark knew of a hunter fifty-two years of age 

 that had never been out of the hands of the man who bred him. 



In a morning paper of May 17, 191 1, it is stated that a farmer in the 

 Lake district owns a horse forty-three years of age which still occasionally 

 works. 



In an article entitled ' Is a Horse Old at Fifty?' published in the Standard, 

 December 25, 1893, a number of interesting facts connected with the age 

 of death of famous horses is extracted from the earlier volumes of the 

 stud book. 



Parrot died at 36. Competitor died at 30 (the last of 



Pocahontas died at 33. the Eclipses). 



Matchem died at 33. Touchstone died at 30. 



In the above article there is no reference to Eclipse. He died in his 

 twenty -sixth year. 



The age at death of more modern thoroughbred horses is as follows : 

 Hermit 29, Victor 29, Gunboat (by Sir Hercules), shot at 29; Voltigeur, 

 destroyed for fracture at 27. Melton died 29, St. Simon 27, King Tom 27, 

 Bend Or 26, Rosicrucian 26. 



f ' Outlines of the Veterinary Art.' J Op. cit., p. 694. 



§ ' Podophthora.' 



