Most naturalists allow the whale about the same length of life as the elephant—from a century to two centuries; but Cuvier declared that some whales, at least, attain the age of a thousand years.
The average ages of other animals are as follows:
| Years. | |
| Ass | 30 |
| Bear | 20 |
| Camel | 75 |
| Cat | 15 |
| Cow | 15 |
| Deer | 20 |
| Dog | 14 |
| Fox | 14 |
| Goat | 12 |
| Guinea-pig | 4 |
| Hare | 8 |
| Hippopotamus | 20 |
| Horse | 25 |
| Hyena | 25 |
| Jaguar | 25 |
| Leopard | 25 |
| Lion | 40 |
| Monkey | 17 |
| Mouse | 6 |
| Ox | 30 |
| Pig | 15 |
| Rabbit | 7 |
| Rat | 7 |
| Rhinoceros | 20 |
| Sheep | 10 |
| Squirrel | 8 |
| Tiger | 25 |
| Wolf | 20 |
LINES ON A SKELETON.
A reward of two hundred and fifty dollars, offered more than three-quarters of a century ago, for the discovery of the identity of the author of "Lines on a Skeleton" was as unsuccessful in attaining its object as had been the search made by the literary world of Great Britain, and it now seems scarcely likely that the person who wrote this remarkable poem will ever be known as its author.
The story of the finding of the manuscript is to the effect that in the year 1820 an attendant in the Museum of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, in London, came upon a couple of sheets of paper lying near a human skeleton. Glancing at the sheets, he saw that they contained verses. The ink with which they had been written was scarcely dry, and the idea occurred to the finder that they might have been penned by some official of the institution. Accordingly he took the sheets to one of his superiors, and in the course of the next few days the manuscript passed through the hands of several well-known medical men who were wont to visit the college. One of these gentlemen copied the verses and sent them to the Morning Chronicle, which promptly printed them.
The poem made a marked impression on the public mind, and earnest efforts were made by several prominent literary people to discover the identity of the author.
ANONYMOUS.