Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books

[201] Sylvia curucca, hedge sparrow.

[202] Dog-fish. Squalus stellaris.

[203] Squalus Acanthias.

[204] Perhaps the Sea-bream, Sparus.

[205] Perhaps Perca marina.

[206] Cyprinus Phoxinus.

[207] Mugil. Some species of mullet.

[208] Lacerta apus.

[209] Sardine.

[210] Atherine epsetos.

[211] Melanurus juvenculus.

[212] (Or perhaps) after parturition the discharge becomes thinner in consistence.

[213] Perhaps ferret, Mustela varo, or weasel.

[214] Serboa, Dipus gerbillus, or D. jaculus.

[215] The seventh book ends very abruptly, and hence it has been thought that what is now called the tenth book, in which the subject of reproduction is continued, would have its proper place here, as a continuation of the seventh. Whether a portion of the genuine work of Aristotle has been lost which would have completed the subject is another question; but there can be little doubt that the tenth book, in the form in which we have it, is no genuine work of Aristotle; some of the opinions are contrary to those which he has expressed, and the whole style and language is different from that of Aristotle. Schneider therefore has placed the tenth book at the end of the work, that he may neither entirely exclude that which in former times was considered a portion of Aristotle's treatise on Animals, nor yet allow a fictitious book to interrupt the genuine writings of his Author.

[216] Different species of pigeons and doves.

[217] Κόττυφος, Turdus merula, Strack, blackbird, but probably more than one kind of bird is included under the same name. Compare 9, 36, 2.

[218] The passage is altogether corrupt.

[219] Indigestion caused by eating barley when heated.

[220] Phrensy.

[221] Red sulphuret of arsenic.

[222] Probably assafœtida.

[223] To fight with each other.—See Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, s. v. ἀλληλομάχος.

[224] A bracket, or two year old stag.

[225] Perhaps Aconite.

[226] Spax lacerticida.—Schneider.

[227] Probably a Zoophyte, Alcyonia.

[228] This should probably be read "the bees only cease from their work for forty days during the winter solstice."

[229] A corrupt passage.

[230] To the end of this Essay are appended fragments of Archestratus, on the fishes of Sicily, amounting to 270 lines of heroic verse, together with notes, by the author of the Essay.

[231] Accidentally omitted in a list of birds in the translation.