This brief article aims to supplement Stefan Schnieders's presentation of the evidence for Historia animalium 7(8)—that is, Book 7 according to the manuscript tradition, Book 8 according to Theodore Gaza's rearrangement—having been considered the seventh book of this work in antiquity. This is accomplished through the discussion of two texts not considered by Schnieders, both of them passages commenting on Iliad Book 21: P.Oxy. 221 (col. X 11–14) and Porphyry, Homeric Questions Book 1 (§8, page 43.8–14 Sodano).

The phrase ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες (‘eels and fish’) appears twice in Iliad Book 21, in descriptions of actions involving the river Xanthus:

τὸν μὲν ἄρ’ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες ἀμφεπένοντο (203)
the eels and fish dealt with him [sc. Asteropaeus].

τείροντ᾽ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες οἱ κατὰ δίνας (353)
distressed were the eels and fish beneath the eddies.

The vast majority of ‘fragments’ for Aristotle's lost Homeric Puzzles come from the Homeric scholia. Like other scholars studying this lost work, I do rely on them. But despite their value, it is important to recognize their limitations. This essay is an attempt to explain a set of Homeric scholia that attribute to Aristotle a surprising claim about the eagle in Iliad 21.252 (namely, that it is a black-boned eagle) and to argue that this attribution is erroneous. I conclude that the reports from these scholia in fact represent a mangling of another, more accurate, source, namely Porphyry's discussion (in his Homeric Questions) of the eagles in the Iliad. Further support for this conclusion comes from relevant passages in Eustathius and other scholia on Il. 21.252, as well as from POxy 221 (the remains of a commentary on Il. 21) and Aristotle's Historia animalium 3.9.

Hermes, rising for action, is twice (Il. 24.340-1 and Od. 5.44-5) described as follows: αὐτίκ’ ἔπειθ’ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα, | ἀμβρόσια χρύσεια (‘then, at once he bound beneath his feet beautiful sandals, ambrosial and golden’). In both cases, the verses that follow imply that the sandals enable Hermes to travel over land and sea, as fast as the wind. Athena is described in the same way at Od. 1.96-7: ὣς εἰποῦσ’ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα, | ἀμβρόσια χρύσεια. And a line including ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα and preceded by ὑπὸ ποσσὶν or ποσσὶ … ὑπό, but without reference to any divine powers, appears four times in the Iliad, describing the actions of Agamemnon (2.44, 10.22), Nestor (10.132) and Hera (14.186), and five times in the Odyssey, describing the actions of Odysseus (2.4), Menelaus (4.309) and Telemachus (15.550, 17.2, 20.126).

Diogenes Laertius' list of Aristotle's works includes a Homeric Puzzles (Ἀπορημάτων Ὁμηρικῶν) in six books (5.26, no. 119), as does the list in the biography of Aristotle attributed to Hesychius (no. 106). This latter also includes a Homeric Problems (Προβλημάτων Ὁμηρικῶν) in ten books (no. 147), which appears to be the same as an item in the biography (extant in Arabic) attributed to Ptolemy al-Gharib (no. 104). The later and more derivative Vita Marciana attributes to Aristotle a Homeric Questions (Ὁμηρικὰ ζητήματα). The only other reference to the title of such a work by Aristotle is from the anonymous Antiatticista, a second-century a.d. lexicon (s.v. βασίλισσα): ‘They say Alcaeus the comic poet and Aristotle in Homeric Puzzles said this.’ Finally, Poetics 25 – which begins περὶ δὲ προβλημάτων καὶ λύσεων – is a summary, with examples, of just such a work, and a description of how to undertake such an inquiry.