| among the domestic animals. 
_undeservedly from all quarters. 
| longer than those of different propensities. 
58 
| full size until about the age of twenty years, his 
life ought to average a duration of 120 to 140 
years. Several individuals have attained these 
ages, and some have even passed them; but of 
those few who survive the first years of infancy, 
by far the greater number do not pass beyond 
the ages of seventy or eighty. This anomaly to 
the rule of Buffon is due to a multitude of cir- 
| cumstances, such as the mode of life, the abun- 
dance and excess of food, the want of temperance, 
and other results of an imperfect and misdirected 
civilization. For the same reason, the relation 
which the period of growth bears to the whole 
term of life, is not without many exceptions 
On the one hand, 
they receive the influence of a superabundant 
nourishment, and, on the other, are more fre- 
| quently preserved from those excesses to which 
this abundance might have given rise. Hence, 
the duration of life is often prolonged among the 
domestic animals beyond the term already speci- 
fied. The growth of the horse being commonly 
completed in about four or five years, it lives 
twenty-five or even thirty-five, provided the na- 
tural term of its existence has not been shortened, 
as happens too frequently, by ill treatment of every 
kind, by violent fatigues, as well as the want of 
attention and suitable nourishment. This animal 
presents, notwithstanding, several instances of 
remarkable longevity, and some individuals have 
been known to attain the advanced ages of sixty 
and even seventy years. As the ass takes nearly 
_ as long as the horse in reaching its full growth, 
the duration of its life ought to be nearly the 
same; yet it often breaks down before that period 
through injuries or neglect, which it receives most 
It is observed 
that animals, naturally disposed to chastity, live 
The 
mule and bardeau are usually unable to procreate, 
and accordingly they live longer than either the 
horse or ass. Very frequently mules die at the 
_ age of forty, and one has been known to attain 
the age of eighty years. The bull takes about 
two or three years in growing, and the natural 
period of its life terminates at fifteen to twenty 
years. The buffalo approaches the former very 
nearly in both of these respects ; yet it appears 
to take a little longer time in reaching its full 
growth, and hence lives to a more advanced age. 
The sheep has nearly the same period of growth, 
and also a corresponding period of life. The goat 
approaches to the same terms, both in respect to 
its growth and the duration of its existence; yet 
the extreme attachment of these two last-men- 
tioned species to sexual propensities serves to 
| abridge the ordinary period of their lives, in those 
few cases where man does not terminate their ex- 
istence suddenly for his own advantage. The hog 
being two years in attaining its full development, 
may reach the age of fifteen or twenty years, if 
not fattened before the term of puberty, as is 
most commonly done, though some old boars have 
‘tioned terms. 
AGE OF ANIMALS. 
been known to pass far beyond the above-men- 
We may thus perceive that the 
relation of the period of growth to the duration 
of life does not remain constant among the do- 
mestic animals. Itis, however, more precise with | 
the wild mammalia. The lion lives twenty-five 
years, according to Buffon, though several lions 
of the Tower-menagerie of London lived in con- 
finement to the extraordinary ages of sixty-three 
and seventy years, on the authority of Shaw. 
The mococo (Lemur catta) lives at least twenty 
years, the rabbit eight or nine; the hare seven ; 
the mouse only ashort time. The elephant, it is 
said, lives for two hundred years; the bear thirty ; 
and the wolf fifteen or twenty. Further, the dog 
usually lives fourteen years, though the lives of 
some individuals have been prolonged to twenty ; 
the cat lives nine or ten years, and the dromedary 
forty or fifty. Nothing positive is known regard- 
ing the ages to which the seals and the cetacea 
respectively attain ; it is, however, probable, from 
their near approximation to the fishes, in exter- 
nal characters, that they resemble them also in 
the average duration of life; in other words, they 
live to a very advanced age. This presumption 
is further confirmed with the seals, by the fact 
that they take a very long time in growing. But 
such facts as these are of a thousandfold less inter- 
est to the farmer than the indications or criteria 
of particular age in individual horses, cattle, and 
sheep. 
Age of the Horse.—The chief criteria of a 
horse’s age are certain successive and distinctive 
appearances of the teeth. The full set of teeth, 
or that possessed by the horse during the period | 
of its vigour, amounts in number to forty, and | 
consists of nippers, grinders, and tushes. The 
nippers are twelve in number, six above and six | 
below ; they are situated in front, and correspond 
to the incisors or front teeth of man; and they 
have their name from the peculiar action with | 
which the horse twitches or nips off the succes- 
sive portions of grass on which he browses. A 
polished and exceedingly hard substance, called 
enamel, covers all the parts of the nippers situated. 
outside of the gum; andas this is gradually worn 
away by the action of the teeth in gathering food 
and nipping the grass, a portion of it passes over 
the upper surface of the teeth, bends inward, sinks 
into the bone,and forms a little pit ; and the black- 
ening of the inside and bottom of this little pit by 
the food constitutes what is technically called the 
mark of age,—a mark, which is at first broadly 
distinct, but which gradually diminishes in con- 
sequence of the wearing down of the edge, and 
which therefore forms, during several years, an 
unerring criterion of the animal’sage. The tushes 
are four in number, two above and two below, at — 
the sides of the nippers, separating them from 
the grinders ; they are situated closer to the nip- 
pers than to the grinders, and closer to the nip- 
pers of the lower jaw than to the nippers of the 
upper ; and they increase their distance from the 
eo 
