Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![lllusirated.) A grisly Bear is known to have lived in the Tower Menagerie upwards of twenty years. The Dog is complete in its growth at two years ; at the expiration of five years it is considered old, and the limits of its existence rarely exceed twenty years : greyhounds attain that age oftener than other varieties. The Wolf generally lives twenty years. The Fox attains its full size in a year and a half, and has been known to live thirteen or fourteen years; but, as this can only have been ascertained, observes l\Ir. Bell, of indi- viduals i]i confinement, it is very probable that in a state of nature, it considerably exceeds that period. “Lions,” says Bacon, “are accounted long livers, because many of them have been found toothless.” The great lion, Pompey, which died in 1760, was known to have been in the Tower Menagerie above seventy years ; and one brought from the river Gambia, died there at the age of sixty-three. The Domestic Cat rarely reaches fifteen years ; it is strange that the Cat, with its proverbial nine lives should not be put down at a greater age. A Correspondent of Notes and Queries records a white Cat, with blue eyes, having attained the age of seventeen years. Cats attain a large size. In 1850 we saAv at Xo. 175, Oxford- street, a beautifully-marked tabby male Cat, weighing twenty- three and three-quarter pounds, and measuring twenty-seven inches round the body, and thirty-six inches from the tip of the tail to the end of the nose; height to top of shoulders, ’ eleven and a half inches; he was then seven and a half years old. The Virginian Opossum is reputed to live so long, that a saying has become conunon among the peo2>le of Xorth](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28127420_0054.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
