He assumes the sum total of life in all animals to be equivalent to five times the number of years requisite to perfect their growth and development;—­and he adopts as evidence of the period at which growth ceases, the final consolidation of the bones with their epiphyses; which in the young consist of cartilages; but in the adult become uniformly osseous and solid.  So long as the epiphyses are distinct from the bones, the growth of the animal is proceeding, but it ceases so soon as the consolidation is complete.  In man, according to FLEURENS, this consummation takes place at 20 years of age, in the horse at 5, in the dog at 2; so that conformably to this theory the respective normal age for each would be 100 years for man, 25 for the horse, and 10 for a dog.  As a datum for his conclusion, FLEURENS cites the instance of one young elephant in which, at 26 years old, the epiphyses were still distinct, whereas in another, which died at 31, they were firm and adherent.  Hence he draws the inference that the period of completed solidification is thirty years, and consequently that the normal age of the elephant is one hundred and fifty.[3]

[Footnote 1:  ARISTOTELES de Anim. l. viii. c. 9.]

[Footnote 2:  Menag. de Mus.  Nat. p. 107.]

[Footnote 3:  FLEURENS, De la Longevite Humaine, pp. 82, 89.]

Amongst the Singhalese the ancient fable of the elephant attaining to the age of two or three hundred years still prevails; but the Europeans, and those in immediate charge of tame ones, entertain the opinion that the duration of life for about seventy years is common both to man and the elephant; and that before the arrival of the latter period, symptoms of debility and decay ordinarily begin to manifest themselves.  Still instances are not wanting in Ceylon of trained decoys that have lived for more than double the reputed period in actual servitude.  One employed by Mr. Cripps in the Seven Korles was represented by the Cooroowe people to have served the king of Kandy in the same capacity sixty years before; and amongst the papers left by Colonel Robertson (son to the historian of “Charles V."), who held a command in Ceylon in 1799, shortly after the capture of the island by the British, I have found a memorandum showing that a decoy was then attached to the elephant establishment at Matura, which the records proved to have served under the Dutch during the entire period of their occupation (extending to upwards of one hundred and forty years); and it was said to have been found in the stables by the Dutch on the expulsion of the Portugese in 1656.