Pliny’s book has gone through many editions and translations. Of these we need but mention that of Dalecamp in 1599; De Laet in 1635, Gronovius, 1669; Pinet, 1566; and Poinsinet de Sivri, 1771. An English version of delightful quaintness of language and expression is the translation issued by Dr. Philemon Holland in the year 1601. He is the only writer who has given a complete rendering of Pliny’s book in English.[7] Bostock also, in 1828, began a translation and issued the first and thirty-third books as a specimen of a proposed rendering of the whole work. His death prevented the accomplishment of the task. The reader in subsequent passages will readily detect for himself from which source any quotation we give is derived, as the diction of Holland is far more quaint and old-fashioned than that of the later translator. Several other writers of antiquity influenced the mediæval authors, but it is scarcely necessary to detail their labours at any length, since if they lived before Pliny he borrowed from them, and if they lived afterwards they borrowed from him, so that we practically in Pliny get the pith and cream of all. Herodotus, the “Historiarum parens,” as Cicero terms him, was, we read, scarcely a historian, but one finds divers passages from time to time in his descriptions of Egypt and other lands that throw an interesting side-light on the natural history of the country under consideration, and these have a certain value. A writer of greater direct importance is Aristotle, one of the most illustrious naturalists of antiquity. It will be remembered that his works supplanted the love of gold, of sumptuous apparel, even the charms of music in the breast of Chaucer’s philosopher, and formed an all-sufficient solace for a light cash box, a sparse wardrobe, and the missing “fidel.” The passage is interesting as it indicates the repute in which the works of the ancient writer were held in the days of the poet:— “For him was lever han at his beddes hed A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red, Of Aristotle, and his philosophie, Than robes rich, or fidel, or sautrie, But all be that he was a philosopher Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.” Aristotle had very exceptional opportunities of acquiring knowledge, as his royal patron and friend, the potent Alexander the Great, was able and willing to afford him aid that was invaluable to him. Thousands of men, huntsmen, fishermen, soldiers in distant garrisons of his far-stretching realm, by royal command were instructed to keep a keen outlook, and to forward to Aristotle anything that was curious or rare, or to procure him, if possible, any specimen he desired to possess. His book “De animalibus,” though naturally not free from a certain amount of error, and the intrusion of second-hand hearsay, is a mine of industry and research and not unworthy of the special opportunities that gave it birth.