Publication Pliny apparently published the first ten books on their own at 77, and saw to revise and expand the rest during the remaining two years of his life. His work was probably published with little or no review by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who thirty years later, in the history of a dolphin domestic and description of the floating islands of Lake Vadimonio (VIII 20, IX 33), seems to forget that both are in the work of his uncle (II 209, IX 26). The Young describes the Naturalis Historia Naturae as a story, and characterizes it as a “scholarly work and filled with matter, and as varied as nature itself.” The lack of a final revision may partly explain the many repetitions and contradictions, errors in passages from Greek authors, and the insertion of marginal additions at wrong places in the text.