INTRODUCTION 



winter protected by mittens so that even the in- 

 clemency of the weather might not steal any time 

 from his studies ; and with this object he used to go 

 about in a chair even in Rome. Once I remember 

 his puUing me up for going somewhere on foot, 

 saying " You need not have wasted those hours ! " — 

 he thought all time not spent in study wasted. 

 This resolute apphcation enabled him to get through 

 all those volumes, and he bequeathed to me 160 

 sets of notes on selected books, written on both sides 

 of the paper in an extremely small hand, a melhod 

 that multiphes this number of volumes ! He used 

 to tell how during his Lieutenant-governorship in 

 Spain he had an ofFer of £3,500 for these notes, and 

 at that date they were considerably fewer in 

 number.' 



Text 



A large number of MS. copies of Phnys Natural 

 History have been preserved; the oldest date back 

 to the 9th or possibly the 8th century a.d. Attempts 

 have been made by scholars to class them in order of 

 merit, but it cannot be said that even those that 

 appear to be comparatively more correct carry any 

 paramount authority, or indeed show much agree- 

 ment on doubtful points, while the mass of scientific 

 detail and terminology and the quantity of curious 

 and unfamiHar erudition that the book contains has 

 necessarily afforded numerous opportunities for 

 copyists' errors and for the conjectural emendation 

 of the learned. Many of the textual problems raised 

 are manifestly insoluble. Only a few variants of 

 special interest are given in this edition. 



Many editions have been printed, beginning with 



