Good evening and welcome to boring books for bedtime. I hope tonight's installment provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you get some sleep for once. So lie back,

adjust your volume. Take a nice deep breath and off we go.

Before we begin tonight's reading, I'd like to give a shout to yet another new

Patreon subscriber, Alice Blackwell. Alice, thank you so much for support. Alice Blackwell.

Alice, thank you so much for supporting this podcast.

It's much appreciated.

If anyone is interested in checking out the perks available to subscribers, you'll find a link to the

Patreon page in the show notes. Now let's get to the reading. Tonight we're

reaching back into ancient Greece once again with Aristotle's history of animals in 10 books.

Translated by Richard Cresswell, MA, St. John's College, Oxford.

Published in London by George Ballandsons, York Street, Cuffin Garden, 1887.

Printed by William Clothes and Sons,

Stamford Street and Charing Cross.

Let's begin.

Preface.

The following translation of Aristotle's History of Animals has been made from the text of Schneider.

In a work of considerable difficulty, it is hardly possible entirely to avoid errors, but it is hoped that those which have escaped are neither numerous

nor important. The notes of Schneider have been consulted throughout, and in places of difficulty the English translation by Taylor

the French of Camus and the German of Struck

have been severally referred to.

The work itself is the most ancient and celebrated contribution to science which has come

down to us, and it is hardly possible when we consider the means of observation

...