History of Animals (Historia Animalium)

The editors, while retaining a general right of revision and annotation, will leave the responsibility for each translation to its author.

J. A. S.
W. D. R.

This book has been compiled at various times and at long intervals during very many years. The translation, which owes much to my father's helping hand in years long gone by, is based upon the text of Bekker; but in subsequent revisions I have included all that seemed to me most useful and appropriate from the texts or textual annotations of Schneider, Aubert and Wimmer, Piccolos, and Dittmeyer. To the emendations proposed by these commentators I have added some few of my own, which will be found brought together in a brief appendix. Many of these suggestions of mine are admittedly venturesome, and but very few of them have been adopted in my translation; but they all relate to passages where the text as it at present stands is in my opinion faulty, and where conjecture may be a help towards further consideration and ultimate emendation.

The so-called Tenth Book of the Historia Animalium has not been translated. It is spurious beyond question, and its contents have neither general nor particular interest.

My editors have been liberal in allowing me greater scope of annotation than was contemplated in the outset for the volumes of this series; but nevertheless I have felt constrained to omit much that I had written, especially on the zoological side of my commentary. To annotate, illustrate, and criticize Aristotle's knowledge of natural history is a task without an end.

Many friends and colleagues have given me abundantly of their knowledge and advice, and my editors have been assiduous in all manner of help and counsel.

D. W. T.