SOME CURIOUS CALCULATIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXIV, 14 December 1895, Page 759

SOME CURIOUS CALCULATIONS.

Some clever scientist has made up the following table, showing the span of life granted under normal conditions to various living creatures and things : The life of a field-mouse is a year. The life of a hedgehog is three times that of a mouse. The life of a dog is three times that of a hedgehog. The life of a horse is three times that of a dog. The life of a man is three times that of a horse. The life of a goose is three times that of a man. The life of a swan is three times that of a goose. The life of a swallow is three times that of a swan. The life of an eagle is three times that of a swallow. The life of a serpent is three times that of an eagle. The life of a raven is three times that of a serpent. The life of a hart is three times that of a raven. And an oak groweth five hundred years, and fadeth five hundred years. Certain portions of this table are hard to believe. An easy calculation shows that if it be accurate the hedgehog lives three years ; the dog, nine years ; the horse, twenty-seven years; the man, eighty-one years; the goose, two hundred and forty-three years; the swan, seven hundred and twenty-nine years ; the swallow, two thousand one hundred and eighty-seven years ; the eagle, six thousand five hundred and sixty-one vears ; the serpent, nineteen thousand six hundred and eighty-three years ; the raven, fifty-nine thousand and forty-nine years; and the hart, one hundred and seventy-seven thousand one hundred and forty-seven years.