PUBLIC AQUARIUMS IN EUROPE. 



19 



mitted. The doorway leading to the aquarium is shown in the 

 illustration ; through it one passes into the main corridor, a long, 

 dark, concreted room, lighted only through wall-tanks, displaying 

 admirably the showy fauna of the gulf, to which, indeed, the 

 aiiuarium is largely indebted for its high rank. Imbedded in the 

 walls of the sides and of the main partition of the room there are 

 in all about two dozen large aquaria. In these the water a^ipears 

 clear and blue ; their background of rough rock work has been 



- .iivmii 



Amsterdam Aquarium The Tanks. 



so arranged that contrasts of bright lights and deep shadows 

 throw in clear relief the colors of the marine life. In the first 

 tank the visitor may find a collection of starfishes and sea ur- 

 chins, some brilliant in color, clustering on the glass, each with 

 a dim halo of pale, threadlike feet. In the background will be a 

 living clump of crinoids, which flower out like a garden of stately 

 and bright-colored lilies. A neighboring tank will be rich in 

 dark seaweeds, and in its foreground a group of flying gurnards, 

 reddish and brightly spotted, are feeling cautiously along the 

 bottom with the fingerlike rays of their wing-shaped fins. Here, 

 too, a small school of squid is swimming timidly to and fro like 

 delicate and quick-moving fishes, and below them will perhaps be 



