The authenticity of persons alleged to be of great age rightly excites critical examination, and some of the most famous examples, such as Henry Jenkins (169), Thomas Parr (152¾), Katherine, Countess of Desmond (145), as Sir George Cornewall Lewis and Mr. W. Thom showed, as well as many of the 1712 centenarians in James Easton’s[30] list covering the years A.D. 66 to 1799, cannot be regarded as established.[31] In the same category we must place Petrasch Zorten (1537–1724), whose portrait at the reputed age of 185 was reproduced by Sir John Sinclair.[32] Old people take a natural pride in their age and tend to exaggerate it; according to Mr. G. King[33] the excess in the census returns of persons over 91 and the deficit in those between 85 and 90 years of age could only be explained by the conclusion that the temptation to overstate the age so as to appear among the nonagenarians had not been resisted. The vast majority of centenarians are naturally among the bulk of the population, namely, the poor, among whom natural selection is provided with a correspondingly greater opportunity of finding those “vigorous frames which promise a long life,” and in these circumstances the means of checking the exact age may be less easy than in the case of the well-to-do. _Sex._--Females are more long-lived than males; the 1911 census for England and Wales shows that after 10 years of age there are more females than males living in all the quinquennial periods, the proportion of females progressively increasing until at the age of 85 and upwards there are 645 females to 355 males in 1000 living at that age group. Among centenarians also the ratio of the sexes is much in favour of that popularly said to be the weaker. Out of the 691 reputed centenarian deaths registered in England and Wales during the 10 years 1910–19 inclusive, 504, or 73 per cent, were females, and 187, or 27 per cent, males. But during the same period in Ireland the disproportion was much less: among the 945 reputed centenarian deaths 545, or 58 per cent, were females, and 400, or 42 per cent, males. It has been said, though without sufficient statistical evidence, that although the female sex is favourable to longevity extreme length of days is attained only by males. The superior longevity of the female sex, in spite of the risks attaching to child-birth, depends on several factors, such as an existence less exposed to accident and infection, a more temperate life, and in addition, so Sir George Humphry argued, on a stronger inherent vitality, for during the first year of life when there is no difference as regards the first two circumstances more boys than girls succumb. The higher male death rate in the first year of life, however, may be partly due to a mechanical cause, namely, the large size of the male infant’s head, as a result of which the numerical superiority of male infants born is reduced by the effects of trauma. Another factor is, perhaps, that old women do not feel so old