In Part B the distribution of abnormal features is plotted, especially for the narrative. As specimens, similes are treated separately for a few books and parts of books. The material in the first book of the Iliad is set out somewhat differently from that of the other books of the poem, and the plan for the eleventh book of the Odyssey also diverges from the usual.

Κ, Ψ and Ω have been omitted from the discussion, on the assumption that their lateness is commonly accepted, and some books of the Odyssey have been treated lightly, to save labour and space.

In the ‘Parallels’ attached to the books of the Iliad I have examined briefly linguistic evidence which seems to me to point to secondary composition.

I should make the general remark that I admit even for many examples for which I have not specifically stated it the possibility of a common source, i.e. that the line showing a secondary feature may be modelled not on one or two quotable parallels but on traditional lines. However, it seems certain to me that the borrowing is often from the actual lines known to us from the Iliad or the Odyssey (or very occasionally from Hesiod, the hymns or the cyclic poems, the lines being then very late in the two great epics).