262 TJ^AXSACTIO.\s of the Ameuican Lxstitute. 



Among men there are individuals whose vital strength carries them 

 further forward in age than otliers. It is not so frequently the case,, 

 however, with the lower animals. Oecasionallj horses have attained 

 fifty or sixty years. But such instances are extremel}' rare, and 

 depend more on some original endowment in tlieir organization than 

 from any particular care bestowed upon them with a view to their 

 greater longevity. A white mule in Virginia, belonging to Gen. 

 Leighton, was eighty-iive years old ; it lived through three genera- 

 tions, and knew more about the work on tlie plantation than anybody 

 else. 



Dogs cannot be kept alive much more than twenty years in any 

 tolerable condition of health. Their vigor M'anes ; vision becomes- 

 exceedingly imperfect, and although the sense of smell is the last of 

 the special senses to fail, if it ever does before death, they are reluct- 

 ant to move from comfortable quarters, where they sleep most of the 

 time. Dogs understand several languages, such as French, Italian 

 and Spanish. A dog on Fifth avenue, in this city, understands only 

 Italian. It is related of a yoke of oxen being killed in crossing a 

 railroad, because one of them was French and did not understand his 

 English driver. Poultry understand no language disconnected from 

 feeding. Fish will come to feed at the ringing of a dinner bell. 



When the domestic animals become aged, which, with some of 

 them, may be at twenty or thirty years, they loose flesh and strength. 

 It is almost impossible to fatten them thus, as the food seems to be 

 imperfectly digested. At least, nutrition is defective, and gradually 

 they have a lethargic appearance, and iinally die without the indica- 

 tions of disease. This is a decay of life with them. In all the inter- 

 mediate periods between youth and middle age, they may fall victims 

 to infectious maladies, injuries from combats, or excess in gorging 

 themselves after protracted fasts. No other excesses can be laid to 

 the charge of dumb beasts, as they are controlled in other respects 

 by instincts and by times and seasons which do not reduce their 

 physical energies. They violate no laws of organic life, M'ithout the 

 exercise of reason, that intellectual man does with all the conse- 

 (piences before him, and reason for a guide. 



With this accumulated knowledge respecting animals intimately 

 associated with man, which has the merit of being pretty accurate,, 

 it is rather surprising that more exact data have not been established 

 in regard to man himself. If the greatest study of mankind, in 

 Pope's day, was man it is no less so now, when institutions have 



