LONGEVITY. In most eastern countries, the aged amongst their fellow - citizens are much respected, and the Chinese have in their cities temples of longevity. The races occupying British India are short - lived com pared with those of Britain, and advance more rapidly to old age, both physiologically and pathologically, yet Anwar - ud - Din is said to have fallen at Ambur, when upwards of ninety years old, probably lunar years.
Rabbits live 7 years ; squirrels and hares, 8 years ; a fox, 14 to 16 years ; cats, about 16 years ; a bear lives rarely more than 20 years ; a wolf likewise 20 years ; hogs the same ; the rhinoceros lives but 25 years ; cows live to about 25 years. A horse has been known to live 62 years, but the average duration is about 25 years. Of the longevity of snakes nothing is known. Lions live from 30 to 40 years ; though a lion of the Zoological Gardens of London reached the age of 70 years. Tortoises live often up to 100 years ; elephants live to a great age, for centuries even. When Alexander the Great had vanquished the Indian king Porus, he consecrated to the sun an elephant, which had fought courageously for this monarch, and named him Ajax. He set him at liberty after having attached to him an inscrip tion. The animal was found 350 years after. Amongst birds, a pelican lives for 62 years ; an eagle died at 103 ; and ravens and parrots have been known to attain to ages beyond 100 years.
At Vienna, there is the skeleton of a swan which lived for 307 years. Dolphins and sword-fish reached the age of 30 years. Cuvier supposed that whales live 1000 years. The greatest age of man or animals is, however, far out-distanced by that of some trees ; for instance, in the vast forests of North America veterans have fallen to the woodman's axe whose age was to be reckoned not by hundreds, but by thousands of years. Amongst European trees the oak is the most celebrated for its longevity, and remarkable also for the slowness of its growth. In the forest of Hagenau is the oldest oak in Alsace, and, in all probability, the most aged tree in the entire world. According to tradition, Saint Arbogast had, in the 8th century, built his hermitage beneath the shade of its branches. The bucherons of the forest assign to it an existence of 1300 years. „It stands in a very favourable situation, sheltered from the north wind ; it has been planted in a piece of ground watered by a rivulet. Not only the trunk, but also the principal branches, are completely hollow, which does not, however, prevent the oak from reassuming its livery of green with the advent of each new season. Throughout all the neighbourhood this antique tree is regarded as the emblem of strength and immutability.