On Animals, Books 13-26

stems from the Arabic can be found in the Index Arabicus; but the poetic fantasies of a Nicander—Pliny—Lucan—Isidore and others may be sought out by enthusiasts in old dictionaries; they have nothing to do with zoology.

Regarding nomenclature, that "pain in the neck" of modern biology, I held myself nolens-volens first to Brehm’s Tierleben (4th ed.); most of the mammals and birds were verified at the instigation of Privy Council Prof. Dr. R. von Hertwig by Prof. Dr. Zimmer-Munich in the most gracious manner; the fish I gave according to the aforementioned Catalogue des poissons etc.; valuable remarks were also contributed here by Rudolph Zaunick-Dresden: I would like to extend the due thanks to both gentlemen here.

The war and its consequences naturally made the printing process very difficult and delayed it: it also caused some flaws directly. Thus, during the work, I was not able to find all the passages cited by Albertus. It is quite delightful when it says, for example, ut ait Galienus, and one then has to look through the 20 volumes of the Kühn edition of Galen to finally find that what was said is not found there, but perhaps in some pseudepigraphical writing or an Arab who cited Galen incorrectly. At such points, or with writers who were entirely inaccessible to me, I have referred to the Index auctorum and hoped to fill these gaps one day during a longer study stay in Munich. This stay now fell away, and with it the desired additions. It went similarly with the newest and best editions of the writers that I wanted to supplement everywhere; thus, many lesser ones remained. For this, I ask for your pardon; after more than fifteen years of work, I simply did not want to wait any longer, but finally get finished. A number of printing errors, which have crept especially into the zoological names of the notes, are corrected in the index.

Hermann Stadler.