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Nevertheless, remarkable as is Aristotle’s acquaintance with animal forms, investigation shows that he is reliable only when treating of creatures native to the Aegean basin. As soon as he gets outside that area his statements are almost always founded on hearsay or even on fable.[19] Whatever assistance Aristotle may have received in the preparation of his biological works came, therefore, probably from no such picturesque and distant source as the gossip of Pliny or Aelian would suggest. We can conjecture that he received aid from the powerful relatives of his wife at Atarneus and in Lesbos, and we may most reasonably suppose that after his return to Athens much help would have been given him by his pupils within the Lyceum. To them may probably be ascribed many passages in the biological writings; for it seems hardly possible that Aristotle himself would have had time for detailed biological research after he had settled as a teacher in Athens. Of the work of these members of his school a fine monument has survived in two complete botanical treatises and fragments of others on zoological and psychological subjects by Theophrastus of Eresus, his pupil and successor in the leadership of the Lyceum and perhaps his literary legatee.