Pliny the Elder's Natural History is a vast and comprehensive encyclopedia of ancient knowledge, covering everything from geography and biology to mineralogy and anthropology. This second volume includes books six to ten, which cover a wide range of topics, including countries, nations, seas, towns, havens, mountains, rivers, distances, and peoples who now exist or formerly existed; man, his birth, his organization and the invention of the arts; the nature of terrestrial animals; the natural history of fishes; and the natural history of birds. Pliny's work is an invaluable source of information on the ancient world, and it continues to be studied by scholars today.